Hamilton slams Bottas chassis swap ’myth’

Lewis Hamilton has slammed claims there is something fundamentally wrong with his chassis at Paul Ricard as a "myth".

After Baku, where Valtteri Bottas struggled so badly, it emerged that he had been assigned a new chassis for France - the one previously used by Hamilton.

However, Hamilton then kicked off the Paul Ricard weekend by telling his engineer in Friday practice that there’s "something wrong" with that chassis.

"It’s been a difficult weekend so of course you start to wonder whether there are any differences," the seven time world champion said after qualifying behind Max Verstappen on Saturday.

"But we just got a great result which proves it’s all the same. It’s normal that we rotate (chassis).

"I saw you (the media) coming out with some myth and I was happy to prove it wrong. The quality of our engineers’ work and all the cars are exactly the same," said Hamilton.

Others, though, had different theories, like Hamilton’s former teammate Nico Rosberg. He suspects that Hamilton asked for a chassis change after struggling at Monaco.

"It’s hard on Valtteri of course but Lewis is ahead in the championship so it makes sense on that level," the 2016 world champion said.

Team boss Toto Wolff responded: "People will think these things.

"We have only four chassis and we swap them around to get them on similar mileage. That’s the reason."

Hamilton said Mercedes has done a good job amid the speculation this weekend.

"I’m really proud of my team for just keeping their heads down and not getting too shaken up by all the commotion that’s been going on in the background," he said.