Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton slams F1 double standards in Max Verstappen rant

Lewis Hamilton has called out Max Verstappen's actions

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Accredited motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Sunday 23 March 2025 04:00

Formula 1 legend Lewis Hamilton has hit out at the double standards that exist in the sport's media coverage, pointing to a Max Verstappen example when doing so.

Hamilton came under huge scrutiny at the Australian Grand Prix last time out where he struggled to perform and several heated radio messages were broadcast during the race.

The exchanges between Hamilton and his new Ferrari race engineer Riccardo Adami seemed tense, but the seven-time champion has now hit back after the scrutiny that they received.

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Hamilton feels that the media have made a huge deal of the messages, whilst failing to report on other radio exchanges involving Max Verstappen that he seems to suggest are worse.

Hamilton hits back at team radio criticism

"I was very polite in how I had suggested it. I said 'leave it to me, please'.

"I wasn't saying 'f*** you'. I wasn't swearing. So it was just at that point, I was really struggling with the car and I needed full focus on these couple of things.

"We're getting to know each other. He's obviously had two champions or more in the past and there's no issues between us still."

Hamilton continued, calling out the media, for not covering Verstappen's verbal ‘abuse’ to the same extent as his interactions with Adami after Melbourne.

"Go and listen to the radio calls with others and their engineers, far worse," he added.

"But unfortunately, you [the media] make… the conversation that Max has with an engineer over the years, the abuse that the poor guy's taken and you never write about it, but you wrote about the smallest little discussion I had with mine."

Max Verstappen Lewis Hamilton Ferrari Australian Grand Prix Chinese Grand Prix Sky Sports F1