"I’m still going to go in there and give him a proper bollocking”: When McLaren's senior was infuriated by Lewis Hamilton's social media activity

McLaren's former sporting director, Sam Michael, was once furious with Lewis Hamilton for his social media activity back in 2012 at the Belgian GP. This was because the now-seven-time world champion posted the team's important telemetry data on his official Twitter account.

In 2012, Hamilton was still in McLaren alongside Jenson Button and only had one world championship (2008) in his pocket. At the 2012 F1 Belgian GP, Button was faster than Hamilton as they were on different car setups. At the time, Hamilton was unhappy with his performance as he only secured P8, while Button clinched the pole position.

After qualifying, Hamilton posted a picture of McLaren's telemetry data and claimed that his teammate had a new rear wing which gave him the advantage. He further revealed that he was losing around 0.4 seconds on the straight.

“Jenson has the new rear wing on, I have the old, we voted to change, didn’t work out, I lost 0.4sec just on the straight,” Lewis Hamilton said.

While the comment he made was a normal explanation, the picture with the data is what alarmed McLaren. Former McLaren PR head, Matt Bishop recently wrote in his exclusive Motorsport Magazine column about having Hamilton immediately delete the tweet. He explained how he went inside the F1 driver's room and instantly asked him to delete the post.

Following this, Bishop explained that he met with McLaren's former sporting director, Sam Michael, who knew about the situation and was angry with Hamilton. Even though Bishop told him that Hamilton had deleted the post, Michael was still furious with the driver. According to McLaren's former PR head, Sam Michael said:

“Thanks, good, but I’m still going to go in there and give him a proper bollocking."

In Sunday's Grand Prix at Spa, Hamilton retired due to a crash, while Button won the race from pole. However, when the overall 2012 standings were taken into account, Hamilton finished one position ahead of Button in the championship by two points.

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Jenson Button's take on Lewis Hamilton leaking McLaren's data after 2012 F1 Belgian GP qualifying

Lewis Hamilton was scolded by several McLaren seniors after leaking crucial team data on social media, and his teammate Jenson Button also gave his thoughts on the situation.

According to Motorsport Magazine, Button said:

“Yes, I’m disappointed. We work so hard to improve the car and keep things like that private, but what’s done is done. I’m not angry with Lewis Hamilton because it wasn’t a personal thing.”

Button added that even though Hamilton was slower on the straight, he could have caught that time up in the corners due to the high downforce setup. He then concluded that he was 0.8 seconds faster than the now seven-time world champion.

“Oh and the bit [in Hamilton’s tweet] about him losing four-tenths on the straights isn’t the bit that’s important to me because, if that’s the case, he should be gaining it back in the corners, he’s got more downforce on, and I was eight-tenths quicker than him in qualifying anyway.”

That was Lewis Hamilton's last season with McLaren, after which he joined Mercedes and soon started his dominant era, winning six more titles.