Lewis Hamilton has called on the media to show greater respect towards Sebastian Vettel after what he considers an overly aggressive focus on the German’s mistakes this season.
Another far from ideal weekend for the Ferrari driver at Suzuka has left the Briton on the brink of his fifth world championship, needing to score just eight points more than Vettel at the next race in Austin.
This time, it was a small error in qualifying and the collision with Max Verstappen in the race that grabbed much of the attention and it is that scrutiny that Hamilton feels has gone too far.
“I feel the media need to show a little more respect for Sebastian,” Hamilton wrote on an Instagram story on Tuesday.
“You simply cannot imagine how hard it is to do what we do at our level, for any athlete at the top of their game that is.
“It is to be expected that being humans we will make mistakes but it is how we get through them that counts.”
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Questions have regularly been put to Vettel about whether he has the mental strength to perform under pressure and interestingly, after the Japanese Grand Prix, Hamilton did suggest that was an area where Mercedes had won.
“I think together we [as a team] can claim credit for applying the pressure and ultimately, maybe, that’s what happens in a head-to-head battle with top competitors,” he said.
“Even though they are still performing great, one of them can’t always perform the same. It’s the psychological battle, war, that we’re in. I think it’s collectively done from everyone.
“Everyone’s putting in 100 percent and everyone’s delivered time and time again. I’ve been grateful to have also delivered when the team have delivered.”
The sudden and quite drastic drop in performance by Ferrari even caught Hamilton by surprise as he was gearing up for a fierce battle to Abu Dhabi.
“When we were having the race like Monza – for me, I loved that race,” he said. “I would’ve been happy to have had that every race following that. I honestly thought that we were going to have that.
“I thought that was how it was going to be, being that they were so strong at the previous two races but they just lost a lot of performance, and then it’s been obviously a little bit difficult for them.
“Of course, I would love to have the race right to the end.”
