Lewis Hamilton received a firm reprimand from his team management following an infamous social media mishap, it has been revealed.
The incident occurred while the now 39-year-old was at McLaren, after a challenging qualifying session for Hamilton, who finished 12th while his team-mate Jenson Button managed to secure pole position at the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix.
Tensions were high within the McLaren camp as Hamilton struggled to match Button’s performance, eventually going on to finish just two points ahead of his fellow countryman that year.
The seven-time world champion, then just 27 years old and still honing his emotional composure, mistakenly tweeted confidential team telemetry data, leading to a swift fallout within the team.
Hamilton tweets confidential data
Following qualifying, Hamilton posted what he believed to be Button’s telemetry on Twitter, along with a comment suggesting Button had gained an advantage by using a new rear wing while he was left with an older spec.
“Jenson has the new rear wing on, I have the old, we voted to change, didn’t work out, I lost 0.4sec just on the straight,” Hamilton tweeted, disclosing sensitive technical data about the McLaren car.
Matt Bishop revealed in his Motorsport Magazine column that the telemetry that Hamilton thought was Button’s was actually that of reserve driver Oliver Turvey, suggesting that Hamilton had posted fake news to his fans.
While the post was swiftly deleted after intervention from team personnel, the damage had already been done, and the tweet was screen-grabbed and shared widely online.
Former McLaren communications director Bishop recalled how McLaren’s sporting director Sam Michael stormed into Hamilton’s room to give him a ‘proper bollocking’, after the tweet violated team protocol.
“I hurried to Lewis’s room and knocked on the door,” he said.
“No answer. I left it a couple of seconds, then opened it. He was sitting on his day-bed, his iPhone in his hands. ‘You’ve got to delete that tweet,’ I said.
“Lewis sighed, pressed ‘delete’, then turned the screen of his iPhone towards me to show that he had done so.”
Bishop then revealed that Hamilton was given a huge telling off, despite deleting the tweet.
“On the way out I encountered Sam Michael, our sporting director, red in the face and breathing hard. He had sprinted from our garage to our paddock unit, which is quite a long way at Spa, and he was clearly not happy. ‘Don’t worry Sam, I’ve told him to delete it and he’s done so,’ I said.
“‘Thanks, good, but I’m still going to go in there and give him a proper bollocking,’ came the reply, and by all accounts he did exactly that!”
