Lewis Hamilton's war of words with Red Bull revs up in Malaysia

Published on Friday 8 April 2011 14:16

Lewis Hamilton is adamant Red Bull do not have him rattled despite their current domination of Formula 1.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner suggested this week Hamilton had resorted to "gamesmanship" and "distraction tactics" given his recent remarks relating to the Milton Keynes marque. Prior to the season starting Hamilton had commented Red Bull were a "drinks manufacturer" lacking the heritage of McLaren and Ferrari.

Then after finishing runner-up to Vettel in the season-opening race in Australia 13 days ago, Hamilton claimed Fernando Alonso remained his primary rival. That appeared dismissive of Vettel who last year wrestled from the Briton the honour of being F1's youngest world champion. With the war of words intensifying between the two rivals ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix, Hamilton said: "I don't think I've ever been rattled. I certainly don't remember at least a time when I've been rattled, so I would have to say 'no, that's not the case' to that one. They are a fantastic team and they've done a great job, but they definitely don't have me rattled."

Despite Hamilton's assertions to the contrary that he intends to stay at McLaren, speculation linking the 26-year-old with a move to Red Bull refuses to go away. Horner again played down the talk when he said he could not see two drivers of the calibre of Hamilton and Vettel ever working together under one roof and further suggested "fireworks as we saw with Fernando (Alonso] and Lewis" during their time together at McLaren in 2007.

Hamilton, though, sees no reason why he and Vettel, who recently signed a new deal with Red Bull through to the end of 2014, could not join forces at some stage in the future. "You saw me and Fernando, we were very competitive, and look at me and Jenson, proving world champions can definitely race together as long as there is quality in the team," added Hamilton. "There is definitely not that at a couple of teams around us, but at my team here you see probably the most quality of all the teams."

Hamilton maintains the gossip is not affecting him, but rather he is enjoying being in the spotlight. "It's not frustrating. Whatever you are faced with you have to try and turn it into positives," said Hamilton. "The positive thing is I'm being talked about, and that's a great thing, which means I'm not forgotten.

"Another positive is that potentially other teams are interested in me, as well as my own team, which hopefully makes my team hungrier for me. But it doesn't distract us, and I've made that clear to my team boss (Martin Whitmarsh].I'm contracted for the next two years and I'm committed to that, but it doesn't mean I can't promise anything."

In yesterday's practice sessions at the Sepang circuit in Kuala Lumpur, Paul di Resta, who claimed a point on his rookie debut down under, again frustratingly sat out the first session in favour of reserve Nico Hulkenberg. The Scot at least finished the second session quicker than both Hulkenberg and team-mate Adrian Sutil, although 2.7sec off Mark Webber.

After a suspension failure in FP1 that pitched Virgin's Jerome D'Ambrosio into the gravel at high speed, the Belgian was unable to take part later on as the team failed to complete their repairs in time. It was also a wretched day for Renault which saw both Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov suffer suspension upright failures on their cars in first practice. The team took the decision to delay both cars before they returned to the track in the second session, exercising every precaution due to safety concerns, with Heidfeld eventually finishing eighth and Petrov 13th.

Mercedes and Ferrari both have concerns of their own as their cars lagged behind the leading quartet by a considerable margin, with Michael Schumacher fifth on the day, but 1.2sec behind Webber. Button and Hamilton sandwiched Mark Webber and Vettel, with the quartet separated by just 0.214sec, suggesting they could be a match for the world champion and his Red Bull team.

However, Red Bull have become renowned for never running at full throttle on a Friday before showing their hand in qualifying on a Saturday.

Despite that, Webber remarked "there is not much in it," while Vettel said "it looked very close," comments Hamilton took with a pinch of salt.

"I'm sure the Red Bulls will pull something out in qualifying," said Hamilton. "They are always blowing smoke up other people's.... I think it's a load of rubbish really, and I'm sure they've another half a second at least to pull out. I hope it's the case we are a lot closer than at the last race, but we will see."