Lewis Hamilton hints at 'Senna-style' revenge on Nico Rosberg

Lewis Hamilton has hinted that he may inflict 'Senna-style' revenge on his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg in Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix as payback for the German's controversial pole-claiming performance in qualifying on Saturday. (Rosberg Takes Pole Position)

 

Race stewards are holding a lengthy investigation into the authenticity of a mistake made by Rosberg which evidently incensed Hamilton. (Pole Position Under Investigation)

The world championship-leading Briton, who has always held an emotional fascination with three-time champion Brazilian Ayrton Senna, suggested he may copy one of his idol's moves.

Asked to compare his currently strained relationship with his team-mate and closest championship rival Rosberg with the infamous rivalry at McLaren of Senna and Frenchman Alain Prost, Hamilton said he was thinking of taking his own action.

When a BBC reporter asked: "Are you even more like Senna and Prost now?" Hamilton replied "Essentially."

Then asked if he would sit down (with Rosberg) and "sort it out," the Englishman said: "I don't know if Senna and Prost sat down and talked it out.

"I quite like the way Senna dealt with it, so I'm going to take a page out of his book."

It was not clear what Hamilton was referring to, but Senna deliberately drove Prost off the circuit in one infamous Japanese Grand Prix in 1990 when their relationship had deteriorated beyond repair.

In Saturday's qualifying session, 28-year-old German Rosberg, who is three points behind Hamilton after five races in the drivers' championship, lost control of his car on his final flying lap and went off down the escape road at Mirabeau, prompting waved yellow flags to slow down the rest of the field behind him.

This resulted in Hamilton's lap being wrecked. He had to ease off - despite being slightly faster than Rosberg at that stage - and abandon his bid to improve his time.

He qualified second to share the front row with Rosberg who claimed his sixth career pole.

The incident came eight years after seven-time champion German Michael Schumacher was stripped of pole position after race stewards decided that he had stopped deliberately after running wide at the Rascasse corner in his Ferrari.

Schumacher retired, but came back to race again for Mercedes whose non-executive chairman Niki Lauda dismissed any suspicions surrounding Rosberg's actions.

In 2006, the stewards' inquiry lasted eight hours. Asked if he felt the incident appeared to be deliberate, Lauda said: "No, not at all.

"If you look at it the way I look at it, he tried to go quicker, braked too late, the right front wheel locked, tried to go into the corner and not to crash he had to go left.

"So this is very simple to explain....These things can happen. They happen to a lot of other people but there's nothing wrong about it."

He added that the two Mercedes drivers may need to talk things over after 48 hours during which tensions between them have mounted following a series of reports about their rivalry and differences.

"I think there might be some more discussions later today or tomorrow morning, I agree this thing is building up over there, but from my point of view here is nothing wrong on Nico's side.

"Lewis was now four or five times quicker than Nico and now Nico's quicker so what is wrong about that."

Rosberg said he was "surprised" that the stewards had launched an investigation.

He said: "They'll see in the data it is all very similar to the lap before and I just locked up the front tyre."