Hamilton Wants Team Orders Gone

Lewis Hamilton is adamant he does not want team orders to interfere with Mercedes in the 2019 Formula One season.

Things came to a head for the Silver Arrows at the last Russian Grand Prix, when Mercedes boss Toto Wolff instructed Valtteri Bottas to allow team-mate Hamilton past to claim the win.

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Hamilton has admitted that episode did not sit well with him and now the five-time world champion hopes there will be no further need for team orders with the 2019 campaign gets underway.

“I really hope that there’s never a scenario like this again,” Hamilton told Mercedes’ team website. “By this point in the year the team were like, ‘we’re going to do everything to make sure, Lewis is now so far ahead you can’t catch him in the Championship so now we’ve got to start supporting him to make sure we tie up both Championships’.

“Neither Valtteri nor I sit in the room saying we want cars reversed, we just want to go out there and earn the position and race for it. “Ultimately Valtteri was quicker that weekend and deserved to win.”