It is an open secret that Lewis Hamilton does not like to test with an F1 car. The seven-time world champion has now even admitted that he once pretended to be ill to avoid having to be tested.
Lewis Hamilton has figuratively ‘killed a brother’ from testing with an F1 car. He really doesn’t like doing it. However, something has changed over the past two seasons, we even see Hamilton more often in the F1 simulator or testing with the F1 car, because he wants to do everything he can to get Mercedes back into the position of best F1 car. team on the starting grid.
However, it does not mean that he suddenly likes doing all that testing. Hamilton’s aversion to testing became apparent during a look back at the past season. Hamilton was accompanied by team boss Toto Wolff and reserve driver Mick Schumacher. Notably absent, however, was George Russell who was ill.
“George is really sick, he’s not pretending to be sick,” Wolff told the crowd at Mercedes on Brackley headquarters.
“I was already wondering,” Hamilton then admitted that he had already done so. “In the past I have done that to miss test days because I really don’t like test days in an F1 car.”
“When I heard yesterday that he was ill I thought: ‘Ah, he is doing even better than me, that is on another level’.”
But George Russell was really ill, unlike what Lewis Hamilton did…