McLaren F1 Team denied that the conversation

McLaren F1 Team denied that the conversation between Lewis Hamilton and his race engineer during the Turkish Grand Prix means that the team stopped Jenson Button to overtake his team-mate.

Making the radio call between Lewis Hamilton and his race engineer during the Turkish GP public led to many speculations regarding the possibility that McLaren have stopped Jenson Button to attack his team-mate.

Even though the Chief Engineer Phill Prew informed Hamilton that he will not be attacked by Button, McLaren say that the information was based on a simple supposition and not on a team strategy. Seconds after the conversation, Button moved ahead of his team-mate, but later Hamilton tool back the leader position and finished the GP in Istanbul first.

“Shortly after Lewis was told that Jenson wouldn’t overtake him, Jenson did overtake him. Phil gave an opinion to Lewis, and as it turned out his opinion was wrong. It’s as simple as that. The race was a bit quicker than expected both for the Red Bulls and for the McLarens, so we were consuming more fuel [than the target]. there’s no doubt that both of our drivers want to win. They were being told to look after fuel.”

“As a consequence of that Phil Prew had the opinion that Jenson wouldn’t overtake. Lewis was surprised by that information. He asked the question, Phil Prew gave an instinctive and immediate response, which was that he didn’t think that Jenson was going to pass. [But] Lewis wasn’t about to give up first place easily, and I think made a fairly robust overtake to ensure that he remained in the lead,” he said.

Right after Hamilton was leading again, McLaren said to Button to save fuel. The team denied the request as being a code used to stop Button to overtake Hamilton.