Mercedes not ruling out chassis problem now Hamilton is also 'slow'
Jun.19 - Mercedes has a "brand new" chassis in the luggage in the event that Lewis Hamilton rejected the car he was assigned for the French GP.
Although the team insists the swap was always scheduled, Valtteri Bottas - already surrounded by speculation about his future - is this weekend at the wheel of the chassis Hamilton raced earlier in 2021.
Title contender Hamilton, on the other hand, has the chassis with which his Finnish teammate struggled so badly with at Baku.
"There's something not right with the car, man," the seven time world champion told his engineer on the radio during Friday practice.
At the same time, Bottas was highly competitive, and consistently faster than Hamilton despite using the second-fastest medium tyre.
"It is difficult to say if it's the chassis or the track conditions, but I definitely felt better than I did two weeks ago," Finnish media quote Bottas as saying.
When asked after the session if he suspects there is indeed 'something wrong' with the chassis, Hamilton answered "I don't think so".
"Normally you can't feel any differences between chassis, especially when the circuit is so different between Baku and here," he said at Paul Ricard.
Team boss Toto Wolff also pointed out that the car Hamilton is now driving was fully competitive in Bottas' hands as recently as Monaco.
"But you never know," he admitted. "If the driver feels like something is wrong, we're not going to try to make a point of it. You just change it.
"If it calms the drivers down, we have a brand new chassis waiting here. We can always do that," said Wolff.
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yes toto , like blaming VB about monaco for cpl of weeks, even though he consistantly said he wasnt at fault, but if its lewis , change it immediately no argument, same goes for NOW saying it might be Dec, Jan before drivers are confirmed, lulu baulking on contract negotiations is he lol your reasoning makes you look very silly imo
Torger please be more consistent
ffs now Torger said Dec was a joke, now its Monza, the guy is losing it , if it was a joke , its a bad one good job mercedes gp is a limited company , plc"s do not take kindly to . i hope he briefed VB before he said Dec that he was joking, my thoughts are that The Board is baulking about LH wages for next yr and hes just trying to keep all the plates spinning
bottas is doing much better with support from his team,he hasnt allways had their full support
"But you never know," he admitted. "If the driver feels like something is wrong, we're not going to try to make a point of it. You just change it.
"If it calms the drivers down, we have a brand new chassis waiting here. We can always do that," said Wolff."
Does BOT know about this accommodating attitude? He squeaked in interviews and to his mechanic on the radio about chassis #6 and was mostly ignored. Sir Lewis has a bad Friday, BOT goes well in chassis #4 ,and the team refits chassis #6.
i know ,makes them look silly but , its all about Winning in the end .
Right now, Mercedes is in negotiations for the coming years. From what I can feel, is that mercedes is slowly pushing V. Bottas out, in order to get Russel. I can understand that since Russel is very similar to Hamilton and will most likely be the next one. This was all decided last year when he got a chance to drive the car. Contracts are complex and Toto is being careful with the wording. I believe the writing is on the wall.
Do you think , hand on Heart that Lucy will race in ?
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