Ahead of the Italian GP, Lewis Hamilton claimed he had stronger teammates as opposed to Max Verstappen. The Briton also added his achievements would not see a similar reception to the Dutchman’s. Replying to the Briton’s statements, the reigning world champ called him “jealous” of his achievements. Twitter user Deni now quotes Nico Rosberg’s reply to Verstappen, which falls in the favor of his former teammate.
After Hamilton’s claims, Verstappen had his response ready as he said the former world champ “is a bit jealous of my success.” Verstappen added he believes Hamilton might be thinking that he’s winning something with such statements, but they don’t have an impact on him.
In his statement, Hamilton claimed Bottas and all of his other teammates were stronger than those of the current world champ. While backing the Briton’s statement, Rosberg showed full support of his comments while mentioning he had had multiple world champions as his partners.
Nico Rosberg jumps in to support Lewis Hamilton
After Rosberg retired from the sport in 2016, the Brackley-based outfit saw days of glory until the new regulations came into effect in 2022. The Silver Arrows won the constructor’s championships till 2021, while Hamilton went on to win all driver’s titles till 2020. With such a tremendous run, every driver wanted to be a part of the venture, but only the best could actually see the dream through. Rosberg believes his former employer only availed the services of the strongest drivers on the grid, as does Hamilton.
“I do think he has a point. I mean, he had three world champions as teammates. That says a lot, doesn’t it? So I do think it’s correct.”
While Verstappen did not like his arch-rival’s statements, the irony lies in the fact that he was actually the first one to claim Hamilton had inferior teammates. With this information in hand, the validity of Hamilton’s statements sees a massive jump.
Max Verstappen feeling the effects of his own words
Back in 2019, when Hamilton stood at the cusp of his sixth world title, Verstappen called his dominance futile by stating he had weak teammates over the years who were incapable of challenging him even when driving the same car. The Dutchman praised Hamilton by saying he was one of the best to have ever raced in the F1, but also added his current success was because of a lack of challenge from his teammates.
#ItalianGP 🇮🇹: Lewis Hamilton points out recent media narrative: “When I qualified half a second, six tenths ahead of Valtteri, they didn’t say the same thing as they say today when Max qualifies six tenths ahead of Perez – it’s blown up much more.”
— deni (@fiagirly) September 1, 2023
In his years rising to the top of the world, Hamilton raced alongside three former world champions, Nico Rosberg, Fernando Alonso, and Jenson Button. Meanwhile, Verstappen has had no such teammates throughout his F1 career. Hamilton has taken note of all this and even points out the vast difference in the media narrative. The Briton says when he would qualify half a second ahead of Bottas, there wasn’t much to it, but when Verstappen does the same today, it gets blown up way more.
