Did Lewis Hamilton know Valtteri Bottas was given team orders?

Did Lewis Hamilton know Valtteri Bottas was given team orders?

Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas

Lewis Hamilton claimed the third win of his season at the Spanish GP, as he extended his lead at the top of the championship to 14 points. Mercedes came up with an excellent strategy that handed Hamilton the victory. He came into the pits two times during the race, whereas, Max Verstappen was on a one-stop pit strategy.

However, Lewis was running third behind Bottas and Verstappen, who was leading the race. The Briton had a fresh set of tyres and was making the most out of it. His Mercedes teammate, Bottas was asked to let Lewis through, as he could chase down Max Verstappen, who was on an old set of tyres.

Valtteri Bottas decided to drive his own race, and defied team orders. This meant that Lewis Hamilton had to surpass Bottas, which could have cost him some time. However, Hamilton revealed that he had no idea that the Finnish driver was given team orders to let him through.

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Lewis Hamilton believes that Valtteri Bottas was completely right on his part, to drive for himself. The 36-year old stated that as long as the team benefitted, there was no harm in doing so during the early part of the season.

“I think we’re the best team-mates so… honestly I didn’t know that he had a message so in my mind I was like ‘we’re racing’ and that’s totally fine for me, particularly early on in this part of the season,” said Hamilton.

“So in my mind I was ‘so I’ve got to get close and hope for an overtake’ but then obviously when we went into Turn 10, we were on massively different strategies so I was going to get him at some stage because I had much better tyres,” he added.

“And we were going into Turn 10 and I thought there was a gap there and I wasn’t quite sure and then there was a gap and Valtteri was completely fair, I wouldn’t lose too much time but this is how we win as a team. We sometimes have to… sometimes we’re in that position where you just… you’ve got to put the team first and getting a second and a third is good but getting a first is obviously max points and that’s key,” he concluded.

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