Formula 1 fans have criticised a Monaco magazine over its front page design depicting Lewis Hamilton in Ferrari attire.
The cover image of the April-June 2024 edition of The Monegasque magazine features an illustration of Hamilton and Charles Leclerc as children wearing Ferrari race suits. They are playing with toys on the Grand Prix track in front of the Monte Carlo casino.
Clearly, it is a reference to the fact Monaco resident Hamilton will race alongside Leclerc, who races under the tiny country's flag, for Ferrari from next season. This weekend's Monaco F1 race is the first in the principality since the next broke that Hamilton will join the Italian team.
But for now he remains a Mercedes driver and Carlos Sainz fills that seat alongside Leclerc. Because of that situation, some fans have criticised the magazine's decision to omit the Spaniard entirely.
One social media user wrote: "This is very disrespectful to Carlos Sainz." Another said it was "in very poor taste" to not mention Sainz and a third said it was "totally unnecessary" to portray Hamilton as a Ferrari driver before he officially completes his move.
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One fan said the cover had been used a year too early, and wrote: "The cover itself is neat, beautiful, if they were patient and saved it for next year, they'd be needing to print extra copies. But now it's worthless and feels even distasteful. Good example how wrong timing can ruin good thing."
Not everyone felt it was a big deal, though. One fan wrote: "As long as it's not Ferrari doing it, I don't get the outrage. It's a local magazine/paper as I understand it, they can publish whatever they want..." Another suggested the magazine may have simply chosen to be "deliberately provocative".
Hamilton will this weekend race in Monaco for the final time as a Mercedes driver and team boss Toto Wolff needs him to be at his best. The Austrian said: "The small step forward we took in Imola was encouraging. The team has worked incredibly hard to bring our recent updates to the track, and it was a clear performance gain. That being said, others have improved too.
"We are still a step behind the front three teams therefore, and there is plenty of work still to do. Nevertheless, we have a clear direction and developments in the pipeline. We have a more solid platform to build on now and we are confident that, in time, we can get ourselves into the pack ahead.
"That work continues this weekend in Monaco. It is a unique circuit and a fantastic challenge for the team and drivers. It is always hard to predict expected performance, but we will look to execute a clean weekend and maximise the car we have."
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