Lewis Hamilton storms out of Japanese GP interview and slams reporter’s Ferrari question

Lewis Hamilton was furious with a reporter’s question following the Japanese Grand Prix and cut short his print media session as a result, after finishing the race ninth.

Lewis Hamilton snapped at a reporter before walking out if his post-race interview after a Japanese Grand Prix to forget.

The seven-time F1 champion only managed ninth place in the Suzuka race, two places down on his qualifying position of seventh. And he was clearly frustrated as he fulfilled his media duties afterwards.

But his time in the print media pen was very short. It took only two questions for the Briton, who will leave Mercedes for Ferrari at the end of this season, to become annoyed enough to walk away from the interview.

He was first asked how his race had been, to which Hamilton bluntly replied: “It was okay.” He took exception to the next question, from the same reporter, who asked: “Are you a little bit jealous of the Ferraris at the moment? Because they are faster?”

Hamilton replied: “Do you have more insightful inquiries?” The journalist expressed regret, but before others could inquire further, the Mercedes driver departed, and his media representative just said: “Appreciate it.” Hamilton was slightly more communicative when talking in front of the TV cameras.

In regards to his Mercedes W15 vehicle, he mentioned to F1 TV that the car did not live up to his expectations.

He expressed disappointment by stating that the car did not meet the team’s expectations. In the beginning of the race, I believe I sustained some damage when I had contact with Charles Leclerc during the restart.

This caused significant understeer in my car, making it very difficult to steer. As a result, I made the decision to let George Russell pass me, as he appeared to be faster and I was struggling to control the car.

We made two attempts to adjust the wing settings to compensate for the loss. In the final attempt, I improved but it was too late as I had only 10 seconds left to catch up.

He further stated to Sky Sports that the hard tyre performed poorly while the medium tyre was significantly better. Looking back, he acknowledged that it would have been better to have two medium tyres, but overall he felt that the car performed poorly on that day.

Toto Wolff, the team principal of Mercedes, believed that it was the poor performance in the opening laps that ruined their opportunity to earn a significant number of points at Suzuka.

Wolff stated that the car was performing well in the second and third stints, and they could have been in contention for a podium finish if not for the terrible first stint. He emphasized the importance of identifying the reasons for the disappointing start.