The British press reacted furiously after Max Mosley played down the impact on formula one of 2007 championship runner-up Lewis Hamilton.
The FIA president on Wednesday said the importance of the 22-year-old rookie had been “exaggerated”, and also wondered if the apparently innocent Hamilton in fact knows more about the espionage saga than he lets on.
The tabloid Daily Express slammed Mosley’s BBC interview as a “Mad rant at ‘hero’ Hamilton”.
The Daily Telegraph added: “Were he to have walked around the streets of London prodding infants with sticks yesterday, Mosley could not have caused greater offence to the British public.”
The Independent said Mosley had “continued his unprecedented series of attacks on public figures”, while the influential The Times went even further, wondering if the FIA president’s comments “could be viewed as part of a campaign against McLaren.”
Not all Wednesday critiques were defensive of Hamilton, however, with celebrity British publicist Max Clifford censuring the McLaren rookie for timing his exile to Switzerland with the release of a biography.
“It seems as though he’s got time to meet members of the public and get them to sign copies of his book, even though he doesn’t want them coming up to him,” Clifford declared to PA Sport.
“What a stupid thing to do at this time.
“An autobiography at 22, when you’ve only been in the public eye for 10 minutes, is a bit presumptuous anyway,” he added.
