Hamilton rubbishes claims he’s lost faith in Ferrari

SUZUKA, Japan: Lewis Hamilton said Thursday that suggestions that he had lost faith in Ferrari were “complete rubbish” as he looks to rebound from his Chinese Grand Prix disqualification this week in Japan.

The seven-time world champion has experienced the highs and lows over his first two race weekends with Ferrari, finishing 10th in Australia before taking his maiden victory in Scuderia red at the sprint race in Shanghai.

Hamilton´s joy turned to despair the next day as he and teammate Charles Leclerc were both kicked out of the Chinese Grand Prix by stewards for separate technical infringements. Hamilton told reporters ahead of this weekend´s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka that he “didn´t feel any frustration” over the outcome in Shanghai.

“I saw someone said whether I´m losing faith in the team, which is complete rubbish,” he said. “I have absolute 100 percent faith in this team.” Expectations had been distorted, added Hamilton, by the “huge amount of hype” surrounding his move from Mercedes to Ferrari.

“I don´t know if everyone was expecting us to be winning from race one and winning a championship in our first year,” Hamilton said. “That wasn´t my expectation. I know that I´m coming into a new culture, a new team and it´s going to take time.”

Hamilton said he was “not surprised” that Red Bull had replaced the underperforming Liam Lawson with Yuki Tsunoda just two races into the new season, but called the decision “pretty harsh”.

The 40-year-old Hamilton is one of the elder statesmen of F1 and expressed sympathy with the 23-year-old Lawson. “I think there´s naturally a lot of pressure on youngsters coming in,” said Hamilton. “There´s no way you can get fully on top of a car which is known to be not the easiest car to necessarily drive. “Just to give him two races was pretty harsh.”