Lewis Hamilton is urging Mercedes’ fans to stay positive amidst a wave of negativity directed at George Russell and claims of favouritism within the Silver Arrows outfit.
Hamilton's struggles in qualifying have been a major talking point throughout the 2024 season.
With his move to Ferrari confirmed for 2025, his performance is being increasingly scrutinized, especially considering Russell's current dominance in the head-to-head battle with a score of 8-1.
Things came to a head in Monaco when Hamilton, after qualifying behind Russell, made a seemingly cryptic comment about "performance coming away from my car."
At the time, Russell was assigned a new front wing by Mercedes that was believed to offer a significant performance boost.
However, it later came to light that Hamilton was also offered the opportunity to run the new aero element. He ultimately opted not to, prioritizing avoiding potential damage in qualifying that could have jeopardized his race weekend.
But in Canada, the stark contrast in performance between the two drivers on Saturday, with Russell qualifying on pole while Hamilton was only seventh, triggered a wave of speculation on social media about Mercedes potentially favouring Russell.
Ahead of this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, reporters directly addressed the issue with Hamilton, who responded with a plea for his fans to not spread claims of favouritism.
"Yeah, I think they know that we're..." he replied. "If you look at the years, we've always been a strong team. We've always worked really hard together.
"I think it's easy to get emotional. But I think it's always… I even commented in the last race, for example, just about my performance.
"I think we need support, not negativity. I wasn't actually aware that George was experiencing negativity.
"George does nothing but his best every single weekend and he's developing with the team. So, he can't be faulted at all.
"Of course, there can always be things that are better within the team. And that comes through conversation, through communication.
"And that's something that we've been consistently working on. But we're all in the same boat. We're all working hard together. We all want to finish on a high and I feel we owe that to our long-term relationship."
Queried on the situation involving his teammate and the latter defending him, Russell noted the “double-edged sword” side of social media.
"Personally I don't look on Instagram or Twitter, to be honest,” he said.
"I still sort of control my own accounts, so what my team and all of the content that goes out is through me – the captions, everything is all of my messaging.
©Mercedes
"But I think social media is a really double-edged sword. There's so many funny things that you see on social media and it keeps you up to date with so much.
But then on the flip side it's not just myself, but everybody in the limelight, there seems to be negativity pointed towards them.
"And like Lewis said, you want to feel their support, and not giving out negativity to others.
"So, as I said, it's not something I've seen or heard about it [from viewing comments online]. Of course, it's never nice to hear this stuff, but that's unfortunately the world we live in at the moment.
"And what any person in the public eye is facing."
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