We are literally being robbed of a proper teammate title battle, and I am sick of it. Remember last year when both McLaren drivers were actively hunting each other down for poles and wins? Sure, luck fluctuated, but this is a different story. I live for intense teammate rivalry mixed with a third-party title fight, and this year looked perfect. Mercedes and Lewis, this is everything! but Mercedes’ sheer incompetence and unreliability are completely killing the fight.
What makes it ten times worse is their blatant lack of accountability. Publicly dismissing your driver when he says something is wrong with the car? Tell me this isn't clown behaviour? All it does is fuel the fire for the media and toxic fans to question his abilities instead of addressing the literal issues.
If the issues happened three times in ten races? Fine. New regulations, shit happens. But we're talking every. single. weekend. The moment one fire is put out, and another one starts. It’s not just a "he'll bounce" back. I've seen pure dominance when his car was fine. It's not this car doesn't suit his driving style. It’s pure negligence. This is arguably the most crucial season of his career. He is finally fighting for a championship, and the team is dragging their feet to fix or at least discover the issue? I know the team works hard, but does working hard pay off?
Instead of trusting the driver who is actually feeling the car on track, they blame him. The media and fans eat it up because looking at actual data is too much work for them, only for the team to quietly admit weeks later that shocker the driver was right all along it WAS ON US MY BAD.
Look at the other side of the garage. When their driver complain, the team doesn't question his driving style they rush to find what's wrong and fix it. There is actual trust and urgency there they're aware this isn't just any other season where all they care about is scoring podiums and a couple of wins and it's a season were they have a huge chance in battling and winning the championship, which is why they’re running away with it. The other garage has the exact same resources, so what is the excuse? This goes beyond incompetence.
I don’t remember Z*k Br*wn last year ever jumping on the radio to publicly dismiss his drivers' complaints, but he still gets his fare share of criticism.
And don't even get me started on the absolute lack of support. I will never forget Monaco when he fought on his OWN, or Canada where he literally DNFed from the lead and as far I'm aware they couldn't figure out the cause, yet when Kimi DNFed in Barcelona before Austria they knew why and fixed the car. This is ridiculous.