Lewis Hamilton ‘sends message’ to Toto Wolff over Red Bull weapon

Lewis Hamilton has sent a message to Toto Wolff to steal Max Verstappen’s technical director Adrian Newey. Hamilton praised Newey for designing Red Bull’s competitive car ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix after Verstappen picked up his ninth win of the season last time out at Spa.

The seven-time champion admitted it was “no surprise” Red Bull were dominating with Newey at the helm and revealed his understanding of the new ground-effect rules had been an “advantage” to the team. Sky Sports host Rachel Brooks then suggested Hamilton’s remarks could the Mercedes star asking Wolff to strike a deal to bring the top designer to the Silver Arrows. 

Hamilton’s comments came after he was asked by Ted Kravitz what makes Red Bull’s car so strong. 

The Mercedes driver responded: “They’ve clearly got the aero balancing great, they’ve clearly got great ride quality, He doesn’t have any problems with bumps… They are a great team. They have done an amazing job. 

“You’ve got to take your hat off to Red Bull they’ve done a phenomenal job. They had a great car last year as well. If you look at Adrian Newey he doesn’t generally build bad cars. He’s built amazing cars over the years. My championship winning car was an evolution of his car. He did his thesis on ground-effect floors, I mean it’s no surprise to be honest. 

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Ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix, Hamilton added he was already looking ahead to next year’s Mercedes after a horrific season for the German manufacturer.

He said: “There’s bits of [the car] that are good. There is performance in there, it’s just whether or not you can utilise that performance. You want a car that world on every single track you go to. The Red Bull generally seems to work in the majority of places.

“It’s understanding why and somehow working into next year’s car whatever that aero characteristic balance is to make sure the car works everywhere. There’s loads of bits on this car we would change, that I would change as well and the team would change and that’s what we are going to try to do for next year’s car.”