Lewis Hamilton has been racing in Formula 1 for almost 20 years, and during this time the Briton has been at the centre of scandals more than once. One of them happened in 2012, when, not satisfied with his McLaren, Lewis suddenly posted on Twitter (now X) telemetry from his teammate Jenson Button’s car. So Hamilton tried to prove that he lost to his teammate because of the car, and not because of his own fault…
Twelve years later, Matt Bishop, who headed the McLaren press service at the time, recalled that incident.
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Hamilton and his 0.4 seconds
The Belgian Grand Prix was the first Grand Prix on the calendar after the summer break. Before the break, Hamilton won in Budapest and was in fourth place in the championship, trying, together with Webber and Vettel, to catch up with Alonso, who was 40 points ahead. It rained in Spa on Friday, so the drivers prepared the set-up for qualifying on Saturday morning. Alonso became the fastest in practice, Button showed the fifth time, losing half a second to the Spaniard, and Hamilton remained only in 12th place, and Lewis, unlike his teammate, was not happy with the set-up.
In qualifying, Button went on a full-throttle attack: second fastest in Q1, fastest in Q2 and pole position with a 0.3 second lead in Q3. This was Jenson’s first pole position for McLaren and the last of his career. Hamilton continued to struggle: in the final he only posted an eighth fastest time, losing to his teammate by more than 0.8 seconds. This was also Lewis’ second defeat in the last three qualifying sessions; he had previously lost to Button at Hockenheim. Hamilton was clearly unhappy with the situation.
Hamilton qualifying for the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix
Photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images
“I was sitting in Motorhome writing a press release when a friend from Sky Sports F1 called me and asked if I’d seen Lewis’ tweet. I looked on Twitter and it wasn’t right at all,” Matt Bishop recalls in Motor Sport Magazine. On his page, Hamilton posted a screenshot of telemetry with the caption: “Jenson has a new rear wing, I have an old one. We voted to change it but it didn’t work. In a straight line alone I lost 0.4 seconds.”
“I rushed to Lewis’s room, knocked on the door, but there was no answer. I waited a couple of seconds, walked in and saw him on the bed with an iPhone in his hands,” Bishop says. “I said to him: you have to delete this tweet.” After some discussion, Hamilton deleted the message, but it was too late: they managed to save the screenshot and it instantly spread on forums and news sites. McLaren management was furious. “I wish our drivers didn’t use bloody Twitter,” Martin Whitmarsh told Bishop.
Screenshot posted by Hamilton
Photo: Social networks
The next day, the drivers were asked questions. Hamilton admitted he was wrong to publish the telemetry but continued to insist his car was too slow. “Of course I’m disappointed that our secret data has been published, but what’s done is done,” Button reasoned. “I’m not angry with him, it was nothing personal. And by the way, wait a minute. I’m not upset that I lost 0.4 seconds on the straights. If that was the case, he would have made up ground in the corners and I would have been 0.8 seconds faster overall.”
Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix ended for Hamilton at the first corner: at the entrance to La Source, Romain Grosjean pressed the McLaren into the kerb, continued to push and eventually crashed into his wheel. Then a pair of out-of-control cars took Alonso and the Sauber drivers off the track. Button took a crushing victory, leading from start to finish and beating Vettel by 13 seconds. In the overall standings, Jenson moved up to sixth place, Hamilton dropped back to fifth and Vettel almost halved the gap to Alonso in the title fight.
Accident at the start of the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix
Photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images
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“In the VIP lounge at Brussels airport, waiting for a flight, I sat at a table with a group of our engineers, took a sip of beer, smiled and exhaled,” Bishop concludes his account. “Should we tell him?” one of them suddenly asked. “What?” I asked again. There was a pause and then one of them said: “It wasn’t Jenson’s telemetry at all. We checked: Lewis was wrong. He tweeted Oliver’s[Turvey, McLaren’s test driver at the time]telemetry from last week’s simulator session.”
More stories from the 2012 season:
