'It's not my job to look after Nico's race' - Lewis Hamilton
awww~ nico needs a babysitter.....poor little thing....
http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/...lewis-hamilton
Lewis Hamilton has denied claims from Nico Rosberg that he tried to compromise his team-mate's race at the Chinese Grand Prix.
Hamilton beat Rosberg to victory in China with ease and it was only during the second stint that it appeared as though a genuine battle was brewing with Ferrari. Rosberg, in second place, claimed Hamilton was driving off the pace at the front in order to back him into Sebastian Vettel and in doing so put Mercedes' one-two victory at risk.
The fireworks kicked off in the post-race press conference when Rosberg confronted Hamilton directly.
"It's just now interesting to hear from you, Lewis, that you were just thinking about yourself with the pace in front and that was compromising my race," Rosberg said. "Driving slower than was maybe necessary at the beginning of the stint meant that Sebastian was very close to me, opening up the opportunity for Sebastian to try that early pit stop to try and jump me. Then I had to cover him, so first of all it was unnecessarily close to Sebastian as a result and also it cost me a lot of race time because I had to cover him at the end of the race because my stint was so much longer. Other than that there is not much to say."
But Hamilton challenged Rosberg, saying his team-mate should have attempted to pass if he felt he was being held up.
"It's not my job to look after Nico's race, it's my job to manage the car and bring it to the end as fast as possible and that's what I did," Hamilton said. "I didn't do anything intentionally to slow the cars up, I was just focusing on myself. If Nico wanted to get by he could have tried, but he didn't."
Following the press conference, he added: "I'm not quite sure how I compromised his race. He was 4.4s or 4.5s away, so he was never close and therefore I was having no impact on his race whatsoever. If he wanted to get closer and if he was right up my tail, then perhaps he could say something but he wasn't and I was on my own. If they [Mercedes] wanted to pit him early then they could easily have done that because I had life left in my tyres to keep going.
"There should be no problems in the team because we got a one-two. I'm actually really excited to see what the team meeting will be like when we go back.
"We're both fierce competitors, but ultimately today and this weekend we had a fair shot at getting the win. We both gave everything we could to bring the car back as fast as possible, so I don't think either of us are at fault."