F1: Lewis Hamilton ignites feud with teammate George Russell over 'luck' comment

Mercedes F1 driver Lewis Hamilton will do well to be more careful about his comments after causing some friction between himself and teammate George Russell. The seven-time world champion implied that his teammate got "lucky" with his car set-up at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after the latter finished ahead of him.

Russell crossed the line at fourth place behind the two Red Bulls of Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen as well as Alpine driver Fernando Alonso. Hamilton finished at P5, just over five seconds behind his teammate. It was a great result for Mercedes overall, with both cars finishing ahead of both the Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.

Russell also beat Hamilton in qualifying, starting from third (after Leclerc dropped down to serve a grid penalty) against Hamilton's P7. However, after the action ended at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, Hamilton said: "I think if I had the setup George had, I would have been in a better position. There was like a 50/50 choice. I chose one way, he chose another. More often than not, where he went was the wrong one, but it just happened to work."

Most people listening to Hamilton's words understood him to be implying that Russell ran into some luck with the set-up he chose, but the younger Briton slammed that assumption. Instead, he argued that he knew exactly what he was doing when he made the decision with his engineers.

Russell hits back at Hamilton's comments

"I don't think there's any luck in it at all. I think it's down to the preparation you put in before the event," he said during the press conference ahead of this weekend's Australian Grand Prix.

He also claimed that he was certain that he made a better choice over his more experienced teammate. "The changes we made overnight, I knew that was going to be the right direction with the work we did with the team. And I believed it was going to be better than the setup that Lewis opted for," he shared, as quoted on Planet F1.

Russell claimed that he was happy with his decision and it was something that was borne out of the work he had done with his engineers and not simply a matter of luck.

As expected, Hamilton was grilled about his comment when he also faced the press on Thursday. The seven-time world champion said that the set-up decision involved a change in the suspension settings for the Mercedes cars and they had to make a call before Saturday practice commenced in Jeddah.

He then tried to make amends by saying that it was a poor choice of words on his end and proceeded to praise his teammate. "I think people probably, from my choice of words at the weekend... I want to reiterate how great a job George did on the weekend. I think the thing I was commenting on is that there's one specific thing that you can change in the suspension that you have to do over Friday night," he said.

To explain what he meant by his teammate getting lucky, he added: "When you make that change, once you start P3, you can't change it for the rest of the weekend, so when you make that change, you're basically rolling the dice – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."

He then commended Russell for making the right choice, saying that his teammate did a "great job."

What went wrong for Hamilton?

Hamilton went further to explain exactly why his car was less competitive than the other Mercedes over the weekend in Saudi Arabia. He said that because of the suspension set-up he chose, he ended up lacking "a lot of front end." He admitted in hindsight that he made the wrong choice.

Despite having won seven Formula 1 Drivers' World Championship titles, Hamilton admitted that he is still learning. Despite the wrong call on the suspension, he called his race pace "decent" overall, especially considering how much off the pace they were from the Red Bulls in the opening race in Bahrain.

Finishing in fourth and fifth place was still a great result for Mercedes, coming off a fifth and seventh place finish previously. The team seems to be on an upward trajectory, with both cars showing good pace in practice in Melbourne.