"The abuse the poor guy has taken": Lewis Hamilton targets Max Verstappen amid backlash over race engineer conduct 

Lewis Hamilton has targeted Max Verstappen and his conduct with his race engineer amidst backlash over his team radio conduct in Australia. The first race in Australia saw the seven-time world champion get involved in back and forth with his race engineer Riccardo Adami, where the driver was being told to use 'K-1'.

The back and forth got played out quite a few times during the race and, in the eyes of many, reflected a lack of preparedness from Hamilton in his first race for Ferrari. The British driver was even criticized by F1 pundit Martin Brundle in his post-race column.

Talking to the media, including RacingNews365, ahead of the F1 Chinese GP, Hamilton has pushed back on these suggestions. The driver said that other drivers responded in a worse manner during the race and ended up singling out Max Verstappen and his conduct on the radio with his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase.

The Dutch driver has often had some tense moments on the radio in the past, and the Ferrari driver pointed it out and said:

“He [Adami] had two champions or more in the past and there are no issues between us. Go and listen to the radio calls with others and their engineers - it’s far worse. The conversations that Max has had with his engineer over the years and the abuse that the poor guy has taken, and you never write about it, but you write about the smallest little discussion I have with mine."

“We’re literally just getting to know each other. Afterwards, I'm like, ‘Hey bro, I don't need that bit of information. But if you want to give me this, this is the place I like to do it. This is how I'm feeling in the car and at these points, this is what this is when I do and don't need the information.' That’s what it's about. There are no issues and it's done with a smiley face, and we move forward.”

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"We're getting to know each other"- Lewis Hamilton on Riccardo Adami

Lewis Hamilton felt that the equation was blown out of proportion, as it was just a polite back-and-forth between him and his race engineer. Pointing out how the driver and the race engineer were just in their first race and still getting to know each other and how they work, Lewis Hamilton said (via the aforementioned source):

“Everyone over-egged [the situation]. It was literally just a back-and-forth. I was very polite in how I suggested it. I said, ‘Leave it to me, please.’ I wasn't saying, 'F-you,' I wasn't swearing. It was just at that point I was really struggling with the car and I needed full focus on a couple of things. We're getting to know each other.”

Lewis Hamilton's first race at Ferrari saw him qualify in P8 and finish the race in P10. The result was not the best for the driver, but it's still early days to see how the driver ends up faring at the Italian squad.