Hamilton vows to help Button in Belgium
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Lewis Hamilton has vowed to support Jenson Button on
Sunday in his McLaren team-mate's bid to follow up pole with a Belgian
Grand Prix victory.
Hamilton has admitted his decision to revert
to an old-style wing before qualifying - whilst Button kept faith with a
new version - cost him dearly during Saturday's session at
Spa-Francorchamps.Whilst Button romped to his first pole for more than three years, and his first for McLaren on his 50th outing, Hamilton will start seventh, finishing 0.8secs slower than his fellow Briton.
Hamilton said: "It has not been a great qualifying session for me.
"We opted to use an old wing this weekend. After P3 [final practice] the new one wasn't feeling so great, so we went to the old wing and it was an awful lot slower.
"I'll just have to do the best I can, but well done to Jenson. It was a great start for the second part of the season for him.
"I will try and do as best I can to back Jenson up tomorrow [Sunday]."
Hamilton, who starts one place behind title leader in Ferrari's Fernando Alonso whom he trails by 47 points in the standings, also asserted his stance to aid Button via Twitter.
Hamilton added: "Jenson has the new rear wing on, I have the old. We voted to change, didn't work out. I lose 0.4 tenths [of a second] just on the straight.
"Nothing I could do. Now it's about picking up every point I can from there. Jenson should win easy with that speed.
"Ps. Can't change the car once qualifying starts. I hope @JensonButton brings home maximum points. I'll try & support him."
It later emerged the three tweets Hamilton put out immediately after qualifying referring to the wing were deleted.
Asked why they had disappeared in McLaren's 'Meet The Team' post-qualifying interview session, the 27-year-old smiled and said: "They did?
"No particular reason. Just like to rephrase some of the things I said."
To clarify the wing situation, Hamilton had earlier said: "This morning [Saturday] in P3 I had some instabilities with the new wing we were trying.
"At the time we had a relatively big gap between ourselves, the Red Bulls and Ferraris, and so we felt on our side of the garage we should try something to fix it.
"For us that was to go to the wing we used in the last race. We believed the gap between the two wings was not so big, but we proved ourselves wrong, and it was obviously the wrong way to go.
"We made a decision as a team, which compromises us for the race a little bit tomorrow [Sunday]."
McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh added: "We made a decision, and I was very involved in the decision.
"Sat here now it was the wrong decision. We didn't have very much data due to very limited running [following Friday's heavy rain].
"We didn't look sparkling competitive with either car this morning [Saturday] so we made some changes.
"It's easy to under-act and perhaps be kicking yourself, but maybe we over-reacted."
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