08/08/2019
NEWS STORY
Three years after they parted company, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg still cannot allow the opportunity for a sly dig at the other's expense to pass by.
Admittedly, the Briton has eased off of late, while the German's role as a pundit for a variety of broadcasters basically gives him free reign to continue to take a pop at his former friend and teammate whenever the opportunity arises
In Germany, when it was revealed that Mercedes had considered replacing Hamilton with Esteban Ocon after the Briton felt unwell, Rosberg smiled and said: "Yeh, he does that from time to time".
In a subsequent vlog, Rosberg claimed that Max Verstappen is the best driver on the 2019 grid and that Hamilton had passed his peak.
"The best age for racing drivers is 30, 31, 32," said the German who was 30 when he won the title in 2016 and promptly retired, "that's because your ability, as you're getting older slightly decreases, but experience counts so much in this sport.
"So experience will outdo the small decrease in your natural ability as a human as you get a bit older."
Naturally, a kindly journo relayed the comment to Lewis.
"I've never seen the blog," said Hamilton, according to Motorsport.com, "I don't know who follows it, but it has no bearing on anything that I do.
"I don't care," he continued, "everyone has their own opinion. Whether he's right or wrong, I don't really care. All you have to do is look at my tally of results over the years, and they kind of speak for themselves.
"Naturally there will be people that have not had the success that I've had, and might want to talk it down, but that's OK.
"I read a really good book," he said, "I think it's called the Four Agreements. There's an element in there where it says don't take anything personally, so when someone says something about you, it's not actually about you, it's how they feel about themselves.
"I'm 34 years old but I feel like I'm driving better than ever. Hopefully today you can see that I've not lost any speed. Qualifying is not always going to go great, you just have to move on. Races are not always going to go great, the last one sucked.
"But you know what, you move straight on, let it go, there's nothing you can do about the past, all you can do is try to shape the future.
"Honestly I couldn't be more proud... ultimately you want to be proud of yourself, and I feel really proud of myself today, how I drove, because that's how I always want to drive, and then how we delivered as a team."
Asked if retirement had crossed his mind, he said: "I watch different sports and I see people that I've grown up watching who have stopped and moved onto something else. Obviously I'm in a sport where I am one of the older drivers so I've got a different perspective. Naturally being 22 to being 34 is a much different perspective.
"I don't know why some people decided to stop at the times they decide to stop. But I tell you I love driving, man.
"I've never liked practice," he admitted. "I don't mind practice on a race weekend but testing I've always made clear I don't enjoy that so much. But I really, really love the challenge, arriving each weekend and digging into the data.
"One day I will have to stop. But right now I feel fantastic physically, generally, this year, and mentally, so I currently don't have any plans of stopping any time soon.
"There's more to do, more to win. There's more to achieve together inside and outside of the car, within the sport and outside of the sport."
Guess one might call that "Touche!".