Lewis Hamilton claims Valtteri Bottas is sure the team order at last weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix was “nothing to do with favouritism”.
Having pitted first as the Briton stayed out for a longer first stint, Bottas was set to undercut his teammate and emerge ahead when the dreaded “Valtteri, it’s James’ returned asking the Finn to slow down to match Hamilton’s pace.
After the race, Bottas played down any controversy despite the order essentially stopping him from trying to close down Hamilton in the championship and Hamilton made it clear, it was a Mercedes decision.
“Firstly it was nothing to do with me. Neither me or Valtteri had any input into the strategy,” he insisted on Thursday in Sochi.
“If you look at the scenario, the team ultimately had the wrong decision, we were going from second to seventh and looking at a seventh and a fourth, which is worse for the team, so the team took the decision to make that choice to have a fourth and fifth, which is better for points.”
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Hamilton did admit though he has only spoken briefly to Bottas about what took place at Marina Bay
“I don’t know if I got to see Valtteri after the race, so I’ve not personally had time to talk to him,” he said.
“I think we had a quick debrief and he raised his concern with it but there’s nothing I can really do about it necessarily.
“Valtteri knows it was nothing of choice or anything to do with favouritism within the team because we’ve never had that.
“It’s not a situation we wanted to be in but we will harder to try and make sure we are not in that position again.”
The team order was particularly notable as it comes almost a year since Bottas was moved out of the way for Hamilton to win last year’s Russian Grand Prix.
That day is was the threat from Sebastian Vettel which led to the call but while Ferrari is posing a renewed threat having won three straight races, Hamilton rejected any idea of Bottas once again becoming a ‘wingman’
“I don’t personally think so, no,” he said.
“It’s just never been my philosophy. I want to do the job on my own. That’s never what I’ve asked for and even looking back at last year, I hated that experience and wished that I wasn’t in that position.
“I don’t think I need help from anybody to do the job that I know I can do, except for obviously my team in terms of doing a better job altogether throughout the weekend.
“But currently I’m fighting Valtteri for the world championship, so I don’t expect a second of him to move that around. I think if it was for the win at the last race it would be a lot different.”