Lewis Hamilton says he is unfazed about the prospect of a synchronised Ferrari assault at the 2007 championship finale next Sunday.
While the British championship leader will be fending off the advances of his own McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso at Interlagos, his other rival – the underdog Kimi Raikkonen – can count on the inter-team assistance of the sister red car, home town hero Felipe Massa.
Massa, who won the race near Sao Paulo last year, has pledged to help Raikkonen to win the title next Sunday if he is in a position to do so.
“I’ve not really thought about that, to be honest,” 22-year-old Hamilton was quoted on Sunday as saying by the Observer newspaper.
“(Massa) will be going out there to do his own job and I think perhaps, if the team ask him, maybe he will try and get in the way,” he added.
Hamilton says that with a seven point margin over Raikkonen (and four points over Alonso), the mathematics are on his side when it comes to the Ferrari attack.
“Even if Kimi’s in the lead and Felipe’s behind him and holding me up, that’s not really a big problem for me. I’ll only need to finish fifth, so it’s not a big issue,” he said.
“I’m not going there thinking, ‘Shit, I’ve gotta watch out for Felipe.’ I’m going out there to beat them all. I think we still have to approach the race weekend by trying to take pole position, lead from the start and win the race.
“Some part of my mind will be focused on the end result,” he is quoted as telling the Independent, “winning the world championship (and) not the race, but I go to win.”
Former McLaren driver and British commentator Martin Brundle, however, wrote in his column for the Times on Sunday that Hamilton’s stubborn charge for race wins at the working end of the 2007 calendar makes him “nervous” about the Briton’s push for the title.
“I was nervous about (his) Chinese grand prix weekend from the moment I heard him say he wasn’t going to be playing the percentage game,” Brundle, recalling how Hamilton beached his Shanghai race in a gravel trap, wrote.
“He led the drivers’ championship by 12 points with just two rounds to go – basically standing in the mouth of an open goal – and he was talking about winning the race,” Brundle added.
Hamilton, meanwhile, insisted that he is now fully focused on the decisive round of his astounding rookie season, despite taking time out last Wednesday to watch an unique NBA basketball game in London.
Despite the distraction, he said: “It means not going to any events or going out partying and it means sidetracking some of my friends for a couple of weeks. I understand the position I’m in and know I can’t afford to take any risks.”
