Hamilton not interested in speaking to "disrespectful" Vettel

The Mercedes driver remains upset about the way that Vettel swerved into him ahead of a safety car restart in Baku, as the German vented his fury after feeling he had been brake tested by his title rival.

While Vettel has suggested that he wants to call Hamilton this week to clear the air once the emotions of the race have died down, such a move has not led to much enthusiasm from the Briton.

“Firstly he doesn’t have my number,” said Hamilton, when asked about Vettel’s desire to speak to him about the situation.

“For me I’m just going to do my talking on the track, that’s most important for me. I’ve heard of what he’s said after the race and it seems kind of…because I’ve not come out of the race pointing the finger or said anything, it is what it is.

"It happened, I don’t think it was right but the biggest thing for me was that I lost the race through the headrest issue.

"All I’m thinking of is, get my head together. I want to kill it the next 12 races to go. I want to win the next 12 races.”

Despite having had time to calm down after the race and through an engineering debrief, it is clear from Hamilton that he is deeply unhappy about what Vettel did - and how it was such an unsporting thing to do.

“I need some time to reflect on it all, but I think ultimately what happened was disrespectful,” said Hamilton. 

“If I had had any ill intent in terms of my driving towards him, brake testing whatever it may be, I still think it’s not deserving of that kind of reaction from someone…that person you do have respect for and always showed it on the track.

“There’s a lot of kids, every other class and category there’s kids on TV watching us and to see a multi multi world champion who you think would behave better than that. That’s the kind of thing you see in go-karts which you learn from not doing in karts.

“I hope that kids don’t see that in GP2 and GP3 and think that’s the right way. Obviously, everyone has their own opinion about certain things but I just hope that youngsters don’t think that…that’s not how you drive. And that’s not an answer to any situation or issue you have anyway.”

Hamilton also said he did not buy any suggestion from Vettel that banging wheels was not intentional and simply a consequence of the German raising his hands off the wheel.

“We’re world champions, we’re the best drivers in the world,” said Hamilton. “Maybe if you’re going down the road in your road car and you put your hand out the window and you do this, you might swerve to the right. But we don’t do that. We’ve been racing for years, you just don’t do that.”