No bad blood between Hamilton and Mercedes, insists Ross Brawn

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn has insisted that there is no bad blood between the team and Lewis Hamilton despite tetchy radio messages in the United States Grand Prix.

Hamilton was initially offered the information about the tyres in the race which the Brit ignored. Later he demanded for the information and quoted “You need to give me some feedback, man, tyres, temperatures,” through the radio. But Brawn said that there are no underlying problems between the driver and the engineers.

“It’s not an issue, quite frankly. We are learning to calibrate our input to Lewis and sometimes he lives with us a bit, saying it’s too much, and two seconds later saying it’s not enough. From some drivers you won’t hear anything, so when you do, you pay a lot of attention. With other drivers, there’s a bit more rapport going on,” Brawn told The Guardian.

“We are just getting used to working with Lewis. I am sure there are different levels of frustration with him. The first level, you just wade through. It’s part of building a relationship. It’s not problematic. You have to realise there’s a massive amount of adrenalin for the guys and energy going on and huge battles going on. Lewis was trying to balance preserving the tyres and keeping a good distance so he couldn’t be attacked by anyone behind,” he added.

Mercedes is currently sitting second in the constructors’ championship with fifteen points separating them and Ferrari who lies in third. Meanwhile, Hamilton sits pretty at third in the drivers’ championship with 187 points.