World champion Lewis Hamilton has given no indication that he wants to leave McLaren after the lying row at the Australian Grand Prix, team principal Martin Whitmarsh said Sunday.
Whitmarsh’s comments follow British newspaper reports that the 24-year-old considered quitting McLaren, and even Formula One.
The Brit, who made an emotional apology on the sidelines of the Malaysian Grand Prix on Friday, was reportedly talked out of walking away by Max Mosley, head of the FIA, the sport’s governing body.
“I have read some stories this morning, but I have obviously spoken to Lewis on quite a few occasions and (his father) Anthony,” said Whitmarsh.
“We are here trying to do a job and go racing and this has been quite a distracting influence, but in all of those conversations from Anthony and Lewis the commitment to this team has not altered.
“It’s been extreme and there has been no hint of what has been reported, so at the moment I don’t believe what has been reported.”
It has emerged that the British driver, who made an unprecedented public apology on Friday for his part in giving the race stewards a false account of an on-track incident with Jarno Trulli in Melbourne, contacted the sport governing body’s president Max Mosley as the controversy blew up. He expressed his frustration that he had been led by McLaren into falsely telling the stewards he had not been instructed to allow Trulli past and that he was so disenchanted he was considering leaving the team and the sport. It is believed Mosley advised the driver not to do this.
Shortly afterwards Hamilton and his father Anthony are believed to have demanded that McLaren allow the driver to hold his own press conference, in which he laid the blame fully on the team’s sporting director Dave Ryan, the man who accompanied him to the stewards’ meeting. Ryan has since been suspended by the team he has served since 1974.
After finishing a respectable seventh in the rain-affected Malaysian Grand Prix, Hamilton eschewed most of his media commitments and left as quickly as possible. He did not disagree that it had been the hardest week of his life. “Yeah, you could say that,” Hamilton said. “You all know why. All I did was give it my best shot today and the results were not terrible.”
“I couldn’t follow anyone today as everyone in front of me had much better downforce,” Hamilton said. “All I could do was try to keep the car on the track. I hope we do make some improvements [before China] but we’ve got a huge amount to cover. It will be tough.”
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