Hamilton felt F1 TV coverage “missed” quality of his German GP drive

Lewis Hamilton has moved to clarify his criticism of Formula 1’s television coverage of the German Grand Prix, adding he felt the quality of his recovery drive was “missed”. 

Hamilton, who claimed a remarkable victory during a chaotic race at Hockenheim despite starting 14th on the grid, took to social media to complain about Sky’s coverage, before later deleting the post from his Instagram story. 

Ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, Hamilton said: “There are certain things I feel about it and I expressed an opinion, I just watched a race that felt so great in my heart, how it felt on the track, and then there were certain things that were not being perceived that way by who was reporting it. 

“But there were also things that were being missed like there was a point when it started to rain and I was three seconds quicker than the other drivers but for some reason on the TV screens there was only the gaps between us there were no times being shown so people couldn’t see the difference. 

“And also it wasn’t being explained the difference I was making, the different lines I would choose. Being that we had racing drivers commentating on it I would have thought they would have picked those out but they didn’t. 

He added. “I can look at, for example, Sebastian [Vettel] and how he entered the corner, how and where he positioned the car and how that may have led to that."

Hamilton, who moved into a 17-point championship lead over chief title rival Sebastian Vettel after the German crashed out while leading his home race, also explained why he decided to remove the post. 

“I took it down because that was in the middle or to the end, then at the end there was some really cool and good comments from some drivers,” he said. “They have such a tough job to report what is going on in the race so again I respect that.”