Hamilton setting ‘bad example’

British motor racing great Sir Stirling Moss has added his voice to the chorus of criticism surrounding 2008 world champion Lewis Hamilton saying his compatriot’s recent on-track conduct has been “quite wrong”.

Hamilton was involved in collisions with McLaren team-mate Jenson Button and Red Bull’s Australian driver Mark Webber during Sunday’s rain-affected Canadian Grand Prix.

Nevertheless, 26-year-old Hamilton’s fellow Briton Button went on to win in Montreal while Webber was third.

Hamilton has been repeatedly summoned by the stewards this season, most recently a fortnight ago in Monaco following incidents involving Felipe Massa and Pastor Maldonado.

But his actions in Montreal led former world champion Niki Lauda, commentating for German TV station RTL, to label Hamilton “completely mad”, with the Austrian warning: “You cannot drive like this as it will result in someone getting killed.”

The 81-year-old Moss, four-times a runner-up and widely regarded as the best driver never to have won the world championship, was less strident in his criticism of Hamilton but reproachful all the same.

“In a modern racing car, as long as the driver is stuck inside it, he is as safe as houses,” Moss told ITV’s London Tonight.

“(But) I think his conduct was quite wrong. He certainly should not drive the way he is and he sets a bad example, particularly for a man who is such a fantastic driver.”

Moss was managed by his father for a time in his career and has urged the 26-year-old Hamilton to return to the guidance of his father, Anthony Hamilton, who oversaw Lewis’s rise to the pinnacle of Formula One.

“One thing is he is missing now is his father,” said Moss.

“His father is no longer his manager and I wish he was because I think that would sort the whole lot out. There’s no doubt that Anthony Hamilton is a fantastically good influence and this would never have happened a couple of years ago.

“There is no doubt he is needed by his son. And hopefully he’ll hear that and come back over here and be controlled and managed by his dad.”