Lewis Hamilton only asked the FIA to step in to stop Red Bull because he's not the one in the dominant car, according to David Coulthard.
Hamilton's Mercedes team has struggled to compete at the very front over the last two seasons. As a result, the seven-time world champion is without a win since December 2021 in Jeddah.
Red Bull are the ones ruling the roost now. Max Verstappen looks destined to secure his third world title this season.
And, with both championships firmly in their grasp, Red Bull have already switched development focus to their 2024 car. That is an advantage which Hamilton recently decried as unfair.
He called for the FIA to change the rules to stop teams from doing that until a certain date is set in stone. But Red Bull chief Christian Horner laughed off by that suggestion by asserting such a rule would be "incredibly hard to police".
Speaking to Mirror Sport ahead of this weekend's British Grand Prix, Coulthard said Hamilton's motivations are clear. "Clearly, Lewis is going to try to get some kind of restriction", he said. "He wouldn't be asking for it if he was the guy in that car – and he wasn't when he was the guy in that car.
"Lewis is a brilliant driver. He's won seven world championships and, in my mind, will go down as one of the best drivers in the history of the sport. The guy is phenomenal – naturally a hard but clean racer. I've got so much respect for him.
"But I don't remember him ever saying, when he was in the dominant era, 'I really feel everybody should step forward and that we should slow down our rate of development because currently Nico Rosberg and I are quicker than anyone else and it's getting embarrassing'.
"The weird thing about our sport is that it's too much of a business to be a pure sport, and too much of a sport to be an outright business. Formula 1 is a technology sport... rally, motorbikes, Formula E – anything that's motorised – there's always the technology side which will give an advantage to one side of the other."
Shortly after Hamilton made that plea to the FIA, Horner voiced his own concerns about the engine regulations coming into force in 2026. But his Mercedes counterpart Toto Wolff responded to that by accusing his rival of being "frightened" and worried about his own team's power unit progress.
"The arguing is great because it keeps us all in a job!" laughed Coulthard, who is sure that both Horner and Wolff are following Hamilton's lead in voicing an opinion which make their own personal agendas clear. He added: "When it comes to opinions like these there is no right or wrong because those moments haven't arrived.
"Adrian Newey has been vocal for quite some time that he feels the rules are becoming more and more restrictive and, therefore, he enjoys the challenge less and less. But that doesn't seem to have slowed down his ability to deliver a winning package along with the team of people that he works with.
"The drivers are in the public eye and we ask them questions about what they think of the new regulations. They will come to us with an answer of what they think and they are better placed than we are on the outside. They've got all the simulations and everything.
"The good thing about an opinion based on the future, whether Toto or it's Christian giving it, is that it's their interpretation of what it might be. If anyone right now is talking about restricting development, it's a reflection of their needs and their desires at this point."
Channel 4 has live and free coverage of the British Grand Prix this weekend, with the race starting at 3pm on Sunday.
