Senior F1 journalist decodes Lewis Hamilton's 'taking accountability' comments: "Quite often the driver will be overruled"

Senior F1 journalist Mark Hughes has decoded Lewis Hamilton's controversial comments about his role in car development at Mercedes. The seven-time world champion recently commented that his team did not listen to him with regards to car development.

Mercedes once again found itself deep in the mud in 2023. The Silver Arrows are miles behind Red Bull in the new season but are not facing any kind of porpoising issues. The W14 simply lacks the downforce and rear grip needed to fight the Bulls so far in the new season, putting doubt on Hamilton's eighth title victory.

Lewis Hamilton claimed that his team did not listen to him whilst developing their car and that they needed to take 'accountability' for not doing so. Mark Hughes doesn't believe that the Briton's accusations are something that the team will rebel against.

Speaking on the Race F1's podcast, Hughes said of Hamilton's comments:

"I think you've got to take a certain amount of it at face value. I think he genuinely does feel that he wasn't listened to enough. But I don't thinks an accusation that the team will be throwing back at him. There will be a general acceptance that 'yeah, he's probably right'.

"But how much a driver can influence the technical direction of the team - it's not a fundamental thing but it is certainly something that needs to be listened to."

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Toto Wolff claims the team is sticking with Lewis Hamilton despite his controversial remarks

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff asserts that his team is maintaining unity despite Lewis Hamilton's accusations that the team disregarded his input regarding car development. The seven-time world champion argued that Mercedes must take responsibility for their lackluster performances in the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

Despite Lewis Hamilton's criticisms of Mercedes' development strategy, Wolff maintains that all is well within the team. The Silver Arrows had hoped to shake up the pecking order after making significant progress in the latter part of the previous year.

However, they had a dismal start to the season, with Hamilton being outperformed by his long-standing rivals Fernando Alonso in third place and George Russell finishing in seventh place.

In an interview with BBC 5, Hamilton expressed his frustration with his team's strategy, claiming that they did not heed his advice during the development of this year's car.

Toto Wolff spoke about the team's unity to Autosport, saying:

"The Lewis situation is you heard him on the [team] radio. He is an integral part of the team, picking the team up and we are all sticking together and I don’t think that is going to change just because we had a start that was really bad,"

It will be interesting to see the relationship between Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes develop in the coming months given the team's woeful state.