Hamilton cheery or cheesed off as Button copies setup?

Jun.23 (GMM) Lewis Hamilton's expression gave little away as insiders wondered if he is cheery or cheesed off about the situation inside McLaren.

Lewis Hamilton, McLaren in the FIA Press Conference

Photo by: xpb.cc

He is the sport's latest winner and the new world championship leader, but he described as merely "interesting" the recent realisation his engineers were giving away the game to struggling teammate Jenson Button's side of the garage.

So lost was Button after being lapped by Hamilton in Canada that McLaren decided the only course of action was to get the two sides of engineers together.

"I went to the factory last week (and) I saw all the top engineers together on one table," Hamilton told reporters at Valencia.

"They had all of my data out, lap by lap, noting all the things I did differently to Jenson to try to understand things. So he has absolutely every detail of what I'm doing differently.

"So I'm sure we'll see a difference this weekend," he said.

It was hard to tell if the 2008 world champion was proud he was finally back on top of his highly-rated teammate, or piqued that his speedy secrets were the subject of internal espionage.

Pointed out that Button sounds more confident now, Hamilton answered quickly: "I'm sure he does.

"There's been a lot of work that's gone on with his car."

But surely it's a good feeling for Hamilton to know he's so on top of his game at present that a fellow world champion is having to copy his approach?

"Not really," the 27-year-old insisted. "Personally, I prefer the olden days where they didn't have all that data logging and it was down to the driver. Now it makes it a lot easier."