Ever since the start of the 2021 season, Mercedes and Red Bull have been at each other’s throats. The F1 giants fought tooth and nail for the championship and shared the spoils. Moving forward, the Austrian team established their dominance whilst Lewis Hamilton and Co. fell short. However, if not on track, the cold war continued off track and is still relevant between the teams and their respective fans. Red Bull gave us a glimpse of that during the 2023 British GP as the team jumped on the opportunity to mock Hamilton’s rookie mistake whilst hailing their world champion.
Mercedes has been trying to mount a challenge toward Red Bull since the start of the 2023 season. However, they have been unsuccessful so far with Red Bull clearly vastly superior and the British GP qualifying sessions gave us a glimpse of the same. The slightly wet Silverstone track served up a little scare for Hamilton during Q1. During the first flying lap from the Brit, he touched a wet patch and slid into the gravel. However, using all his years of experience, the Mercedes man managed to rectify his rookie error.
However, the Red Bull admin did not let this opportunity slide and pointed it out as soon as they could with a tweet. “Ooh, that’s Hamilton slipping away on the track, but he seems in control again. Meanwhile, Max has just set his fastest lap. #BritishGP” tweeted Red Bull’s Twitter admin,
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The hilarious part of the tweet was the latter half where the admin also felt necessary to point out Verstappen set the fastest lap of the session seconds later.
Ooh, that's Hamilton slipping away on the track, but he seems in control again. Meanwhile, Max has just set his fastest lap. #BritishGP
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) July 8, 2023
This casual banter is part of the fun and the fans love to see it. However, sometimes, the verbal attacks are less subtle and more brutal.
Christian Horner launches a personal attack on Lewis Hamilton after a suggestion at the Austrian GP
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After Red Bull’s home GP, Lewis Hamilton made a suggestion there should be a restriction put on teams. The restriction would not allow teams to start working on their next year’s challenger early. This suggestion was obviously targeted at Red Bull because of its superiority in the current season. However, the Brit received plenty of criticism from all Red Bull entities and even no support from his own boss.
Meanwhile, Horner alluded to how Lewis’s solution won’t work out practically, by saying, “He’s obviously speaking from personal experience. I think it would be incredibly hard to control. How on earth could you say, ‘All right, August 1st, let’s go!’ How can you prevent people from thinking about or working on next year’s cars?”
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This back-and-forth was a common occurrence in the 2021 season. Since then, it has become rare, however, not completely non-existent. We are sure it will never be non-existent as long as Hamilton keeps fighting for his eighth championship.
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