Hamilton slams ‘BS’ rumors of tensions with Ferrari race engineer

Lewis Hamilton has hit back at speculation of a strained relationship with his Ferrari race engineer Riccardo Adami, branding the rumors as “BS” and insisting the two are working in lockstep as he navigates his first season in red.

The seven-time world champion addressed the chatter ahead of this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, following a tense Monaco race weekend where radio exchanges between driver and engineer raised a few eyebrows.

On Sunday, Hamilton, frustrated by what he felt was a lack of on-track information, could be heard asking Adami at the end of the race: “Are you upset with me or something?” – a question that went unanswered on the world feed.

That single moment set off a flurry of speculation, but Hamilton wasn’t having any of it.

"Our relationship is great, no problems,” he countered in Thursday’s press conference in Barcelona.

“We're constantly learning more and more about each other. We're constantly adapting to the way both of us like to work. He's worked with lots of different drivers before. We don't have any problems whatsoever."

The British driver was clear that any on-air tension was part and parcel of the high-stakes, high-pressure world of Formula 1 – and not a sign of any deeper conflict.

“We have disagreements, like in any relationship”

"Yeah, there's a lot of speculation. Most of it is BS,” he said. “Ultimately, we have a great relationship. He's been amazing to work with. He's a great guy, working so hard. We both are."

"And we don't always get it right every weekend. Do we have disagreements? Like everyone does in relationships, but we work through them.

"We're both in it together. We both want to win a championship together. We're both working towards lifting the team up,” he added, praising his engineer’s commitment.

Hamilton also offered a more mundane explanation for the Monaco radio issues, attributing it to technical difficulties.

"There was areas that we just had radio problems through the race. I didn't get all the information that I wanted, but we spoke afterwards,” he said.

As for the outside noise? Hamilton made it clear he’s tuning it out: “It’s just all noise, and we don’t really pay any attention to it. It can continue if you want but it doesn't make any difference to the job that we're trying to do."

• Read also: Hamilton couldn’t wait for ‘horrible’ Monaco race to end

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