Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

New rules just 'to make headlines' - Hamilton

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Lewis Hamilton believes recent rule changes in F1 have been introduced just "to make headlines".

A meeting of the F1 Commission earlier this week saw a new qualifying format approved as well as agreement on aerodynamic regulations for the 2017 season. However, Hamilton was critical of the regulation changes on Wednesday and after driving on Thursday morning he said the new rules will have little impact.

Hamilton criticises F1's regulation changes

"I don’t know what the other drivers want but I don’t care to be consulted about it," Hamilton said. "I just don’t think they are particularly special or will add to the spectacle for the fans and that’s what we’ve got to do.

"Definitely on race weekends, for example we are limited on tyres and engines so we do less running. When these people turn up and spend so much money to watch a test day they are sat there watching nothing for a period of time because we have no tyres.

"There are loads of things I just feel it’s to make headlines and all it does is cause everyone to talk about it, but it’s not going to make much difference."

And Hamilton was also not a fan of the new Driver of the Day award which will be introduced in order to attempt to increase fan engagement.

"It’s probably good for the youngsters that are coming in, but Driver of the Day doesn’t sound good to me. It seems like a pointless exercise. I don’t really have positive things to say about these rules."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.