Belgian GP: Lewis Hamilton's tweet angers McLaren team
Last updated on .From the section Formula 1
Lewis Hamilton has angered his McLaren team by posting sensitive technical information on the social networking site Twitter.
The 27-year-old put up a picture of a telemetry sheet showing data from his and team-mate Jenson Button's qualifying laps at the Belgian GP.
The picture was removed after McLaren made it clear it was not acceptable.
On Saturday, Hamilton posted a series of tweets containing acronyms for bad language, which were also removed.
McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said: "He was asked to take [the telemetry tweet] down and he did it immediately. He misjudged the situation. All the other ones we didn't ask him to remove, but that one he removed it and apologised. He wasn't thinking clearly obviously."
Asked if that was the end of the matter, Whitmarsh said: "Yes."
The telemetry sheet not only contained traces of the two drivers' laps, showing where Hamilton was losing time to Button, but also information about the car's settings, including sensitive data such as its ride height.
Hamilton's decision to tweet the picture was met with disbelief by engineers from rival teams.
McLaren - and all other F1 teams - operate on a basis of strict confidentiality. "This is effectively a war," one said on Sunday morning.
Another said his decision to post the picture was "quite strange".
BBC Sport understands Hamilton regrets his decision to post the picture.
His tweets earlier in the weekend, which contained a series of colloquial acronyms that stand for swear words also caused a stir at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Hamilton removed all of those tweets, too, but this was not at McLaren's request. The team are understood not to have been bothered by these earlier tweets - but were disappointed at the telemetry picture.
Asked why he had removed the tweets with bad language, Hamilton said he wanted to "rephrase" some of the things he had said.
The incident has happened at a time when Hamilton is in intense contractual negotiations with McLaren.
He is out of contract at the end of the year and approaches made by his management team to other leading teams Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes have been rebuffed.
It is understood that Hamilton will stay at McLaren and that negotiations are now dealing with details such as PR commitments and travel arrangements.
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One word sums up the lad , arrogant . He needs to grow up and be professional , which he has said before but never keeps it up .
Talent but no class
Starting to lose the goodwill of the fans.
As he said, there was a vote to return back to the old wing and run high-downforce. If he disagreed, he should have put his case more forcefully - complaining after parc ferme kicks in is stupid and he would have been singing a different tune if today was a wet race.
My impression of Lewis is that he feels he is "owed" something all the time. If he doesn't get his own way he feels justified in behaving exactly as he wants regardless of the consequences (in this case to his team-mate).
I understand that all managers think they can get the best out anyone they employ but he did this to a team that has backed him from very early in his career.
No, not a clever move but one that will alienate him from his team and colour the view of all the other teams. Stupid and childish, he has lost my support!
How's this "gutter journalism"? Hamilton posted confidential data online for the world to see and has given all the other teams valuable clues as to how the McLaren works. This is a big story. If this was any other driver you'd be calling for their instant dismissal. He should be considering himself the luckiest man on the grid that McLaren are still giving him a new contract.
One rule for the 'superstars', one for us, the proletariat...