Posted by Maurice Hamiton at 5:50PM on Saturday 10 May, 2008 1 Comment
One way or another, it hasn't been Lewis Hamilton's weekend so far.
The Englishman was made to look foolish during a publicity stunt for Vodafone which saw the McLaren driver hoisted by wires as he played the part of Apollo during a promotional event on the Istanbul set depicting the battle of Troy.
Rather than appear like a world superstar, Hamilton looked a prize eejit, particularly when Vodafone's craving for publicity had Lewis dressed in his race overalls rather than a period costume.
'Uncool,' was how Lewis described his first sight of pictures taken at the ill-conceived event.
He looked equally unimpressed when he sat alongside Felipe Massa and Heikki Kovalainen at the post-qualifying press conference.
Hamilton said his obvious discomfort was because he needed to go to the toilet but you can bet the thing that was really pissing him off was his third fastest time and the presence of his team-mate, never mind the little Brazilian in the Ferrari overalls.
Lewis, honest as ever, could only blame himself for going against the popular choice by picking the harder of the two types of tyre available for his last and most important lap of qualifying.
It smacked of trying too hard and overcomplicating his life when the pressure is on.
Hamilton will have known that, although he was faster than Kovalainen during qualifying two weeks ago, fuel corrected times show that the Finn was actually faster and was running longer when that front wheel failed on his car during the first stint of the Barcelona race.
Don't forget, it's every man for himself at McLaren. There will be no play-acting nonsense during the 58-lap race.
Maurice Hamilton is the F1 commentator for BBC Five Live
1 Comment for "Maurice's Turkish GP quali report"
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Ouch! Is the ice-cool Hamilton starting to melt? I reckon he started to melt about 3 races from the end of last season... and his game is quickly crumbling. I'm a fan of his, I really want him to do well. He injected a lot of interest into F1 last year and has got us Brits waving our flags again.
However, it's not hard to spot a massive lack of confidence at the minute and a man who has suddenly realised he's now a very small McLaren fish in a big red Ferrari pool.