27/11/2016
NEWS STORY
Lewis Hamilton has defended his tactics during today's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Appearing to take his team orders from Red Bull boss, Christian Horner, as opposed to his own team, Lewis Hamilton followed the Briton's advice to the letter today.
Ahead of the weekend, hoping to see his own drivers profit from the in-team battle for the title at Mercedes, Christian Horner had suggested that Lewis Hamilton's best hope of retaining his title was to take the lead and subsequently slow and back-up the German into the clutches of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen.
Obeying the orders to the letter, much to the annoyance of his own team, Hamilton duly slowed - at times as much as 9s off his pole-winning time - thereby backing Rosberg into the clutches of... Sebastian Vettel.
Despite repeated instructions from his team, Hamilton carried on regardless, leading to Toto Wolff describing his behaviour as "anarchy".
However, the three-time world champion defended his tactics.
"I don't think I did anything dangerous, I don’t feel I did anything unfair," he told reports. We were fighting for a championship, I was in the lead, I control the pace, that’s the rules."
Asked if he was annoyed by the calls from the team, he replied: "Not really. I don't know why they didn't just let us race.
"There was never a moment where I felt I was going to lose the race," he insisted.
"It is a shame that it is quite clear their thought process..." he trailed off, "I don't have much to say to be honest.
"I was hoping he would close up but his tyres were going off towards the end," he said of Sebastian Vettel who was shadowing both Mercedes having made a late change to the supersoft tyres. "Nico drove well to not make mistakes.
"It was pretty chilled at the end," he insisted. "It may have been intense for you but not intense for me.
"For me, I am in a position where I had a lot of points lost during the season so for me I am out there fighting and generally never try to do anything to harm the team or the brand. We won the constructors' championship so it was down to me and Nico today. However they felt they still needed to make comments. We will discuss it afterwards as we all do."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Abu Dhabi, here.