“You can't do this to SIR Lewis Hamilton": F1 photographer shifts the trash cans from in front of 7-time champion to George Russell 

Lewis Hamilton is an icon of Formula 1. The 7-time champion has helped grow the sport unlike arguably any other driver. So it is natural that a couple of F1 photographers felt he was disrespected when a set of trash cans was kept in front of his poster at the Circuit of the Americas.

In the fan video, F1 photographers are visibly upset with two trash cans kept in front of Lewis Hamilton's poster behind Mercedes' merchandise store. The fan said:

"How could they do this? My baby is gonna fix this. You can not do this to Lewis, you can't do this to SIR Lewis Hamilton".

The person shifted the trash cans in front of Hamilton's Mercedes teammate George Russell and shared a laugh. Russell qualified for the sprint race at COTA in P2 after being edged by Max Verstappen for the pole. The 7-time F1 champion finished P7 due to yellow flags deployed by marshals after Franco Colapinto's spin.

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Lewis Hamilton reacts after unlucky incident costs him in the sprint qualifying

Mercedes was in impressive form during the Sprint qualifying session at COTA. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell looked set for an impressive result. However, Franco Colapinto-caused yellow flags marred the former McLaren driver's qualifying.

While Russell bagged a front-row start for tomorrow's sprint, Hamilton will start the race from P7. The boy from Stevenage will be gutted to start so low given he was more than four-tenths up to his teammate in the first sector.

Lewis Hamilton spoke about the incident to media, including Sportskeeda at COTA. He said:

“Just got unlucky with the yellow flag. It is what it is [and] I was 4-tenths up. The good thing is the team has made a step with the car, the upgrades have clearly worked. Really grateful to everyone back at the factory for all the hard work.”

The Silver Arrows driver also added:

“It’s not the end of the day. Tomorrow we get another chance. We did a great job in between [sessions] to make changes to the car and it’s always a bit of a gamble cause you don’t know whether or not it’s gonna work– and as soon as I got out of the car it was night and day difference. It was great work from the guys in the garage and then Bono and Mike.”

Hamilton would still be feeling pretty upbeat about his chances for tomorrow's sprint and qualifying. The Mercedes star has never qualified out of the top 5 in Austin. He also holds the record for most wins on this circuit.

With McLaren struggling, the Mercedes pair have a good shot of challenging for the race win on Sunday.