Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer Peter Bonnington seemingly took a dig at the Mercedes driver by raising doubts if the 38-year-old could match the pace of Miami GP winner Max Verstappen. The Dutchman produced an utterly dominant performance as he not only won the race but also clinched the fastest lap from ninth place on the grid.
Since Hamilton had a disastrous race weekend, he hoped to get some solace by clocking in the fastest lap. However, Verstappen held the fastest lap, a time that seemed far beyond the reach of Hamilton.
When the Briton asked his race engineer if he could clinch the fastest lap, Bonnington replied (as quoted by fiagirly), “That’s Verstappen with a 30.37“. When Hamilton once again asked Bonnginton if it was realistic to get this fastest lap, his race engineer replied, “That’s minus 0.8 on your delta. You have to think about that“.
📻 | Lewis Hamilton : “What’s the quickest time? Can I get it?”
📻 | Bono: “That’s Verstappen with a 30.37”
📻 | Lewis Hamilton: “Well, can I?”
📻 | Bono: “That’s minus 0.8 on your delta. You have to think about that.”
— deni (@fiagirly) May 7, 2023
F1 fans have a laugh at Hamilton’s radio message
Several fans such as Michael simply had a laugh at the exchange between Lewis Hamilton and Peter Bonnington on Mercedes’ team radio.
😂😂😂😂😂😂
— Michael (@MichaelJloyed) May 7, 2023
Meanwhile, a Helmut Marko fan seemed to suggest that Mercedes’ glory days are past them.
Lol, someone needs to remind Lewis he is not driving the W11.
— Helmut Marko’s Spirit (@HelmutMaxko) May 7, 2023
And then some fans such as J. Subia attempted to decode Bonnington’s radio message to Hamilton. They believe that the 48-year-old was simply attempting to inform the Briton politely that he was ‘not good enough’ at the moment.
That’s the polite way of Bono to say “Lewis you’re not good enough without the best car” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
— J. Subia (@jsubiao) May 8, 2023
Lewis Hamilton has a disappointing start to his 2023 season
After dominating the turbo hybrid era (2014-21) by winning six of his seven world championships with Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton suddenly finds himself fighting in the midfield. After finishing on the podium just once in the first four races of the season, the Briton had another disappointing race this past Sunday as he finished the Miami GP sixth.
Consequently of this result, he just scored eight points and fell further behind Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso in the championship. Hamilton is currently fourth in the championship with 56 points, 19 points behind third-placed Alonso.
