There is No "We" in Team

It has been a month of lies, conspiracy theories, and just bizarre teammate on teammate violence in F1.

A few weeks ago Lewis Hamilton said that he didn’t expect to outqualify George Russell at Mercedes for the rest of the season, giving unspecified and vague reasons. This lit the Hamilfans up to speculate that maybe his ride was being sabotaged.

Then, despite Russell’s epic fourth-to-first Fernando Alonso-like slingshot in to the lead of the Spanish GP, Hamilton put all that speculation to rest by out-qualifying George on Saturday and scoring his first podium of the season, and 18^th consecutive year with at least one top 3 finish in his career, on Sunday. 

If there was a Merc preference for George, then Ham played it perfectly, introducing doubt into a team that overcompensated by putting Hamilton on the favored medium tire strategy and giving George the old cement shoe hard tires.

Though if Russell had a set of mediums fixed to his silver arrow, they still didn’t really have the race pace to hang with Max’s Red Bull and Lando’s McLaren. 

Maybe friendships only last across teams in F1?

Heck, neither did the other members of Red Bull and McLaren paddock.  Despite his stellar rookie debut in 2023, Piastri has struggled to maintain that pace finishing a dismal 30 seconds behind Lando in Spain.  There’s no way Zak Brown Band who has an ego the size of Texas would handicap his driver for Norris’ gain when McLaren now have an actual shot at catching Red Bull for the constructors.

So too it goes with Christian “Harassment Spice” Horner and Helmut “The Emperor” Marko, so self-assured that surely they wouldn’t sign Checo to a two year follow-on deal, only to hold him back almost a full minute behind Max in Catalunya.

What does make this all confusing is now that the pressure is off, you’d think Checo would rise to the occasion.  He always has. He is a vet who once wrung the neck off the old Force India tin-cans. He is the tire-whisperer, able to make a soft compound tire last forever in the molasses-drip of a heater day when everyone else is double-pitting. But, for whatever reason those days are gone.

Also lost is the pre-season amity of Ocon and Gasly who have now spent a month of Sundays running in to one another until Ocon was booted from he team in 2025. This has paved the way for an upcoming test at Paul Ricard whereby Mick “Not Yet Quick” Schumacher and Jack “My Dad Was Moto-GP Champ” Doohan square off to see who gets that seat at Alpine.