By Steven English and Jonathan Noble Tuesday, October 14th 2008, 15:49 GMT
Norbert HaugMercedes-Benz motorsport boss Norbert Haug says he will not discourage Lewis Hamilton from taking risks in the last two races of the season, despite the McLaren driver running into trouble in last weekend's Japanese Grand Prix.
Hamilton made a poor start from pole position and tried to regain the lead from Kimi Raikkonen under braking for the first corner and slid wide. Then he was tapped into a spin by Felipe Massa and given a drive-through penalty for forcing Raikkonen wide at Turn 1.
But Haug echoed the views of McLaren bosses Ron Dennis and Martin Whitmarsh, saying that Hamilton is free to drive his own way.
"First of all, these are adults and sportsmen. We talk about it, but it's not like a little schoolboy - 'do this, do that'. We give advice, but he needs to take his own decisions, which he does," said Haug.
"Potentially we could have increased our lead, but we did not. It's not a disaster. That's the point you have to make without screaming and shouting. I'm sure he did not judge it in that millisecond as a big risk."
He added that it was being spun around by Massa later on the first lap that ruined Hamilton's race, rather than the first corner incident.
"He would have been seventh wihtout being spun around and it could have been a very clean race between them (Hamilton and Massa)," he said.
"It would have been nice to have both guys in these positions because then they would have fought it out."
Haug also questioned the drive-through penalty Hamilton received for the first corner move on Raikkonen.
"I need to look at the pictures, currently I do not understand what was wrong. This was certainly a very optimistic manoeuvre but an optimistic manouevre helped Felipe get in the lead in Hungary and that was very similar," he added.
"Ask the spectators whether they like it or not and they would have loved to have seen a race for seventh place between them. But we have to quickly forget it.
"The positive thing is that we had seven points with three races to go, now we have five with two to go. That's a slightly better average now, so at least we are not in a worse position than before. Now we concentrate on the next race and try to do the best job."
