Jun.22 (GMM) An angry Lewis Hamilton after the French grand prix blasted his drive-through penalty and warned his detractors he will not succumb to the rising pressure of life on the grid.
Having already hit out at those pedalling negative messages about him in the media, the McLaren driver started the Magny-Cours race with a ten-place demotion following his Montreal pitlane crash.After cutting a chicane in an overtaking move on Sebastian Vettel, stewards then ruled that the 23-year-old Briton should serve a drive-through penalty.France is therefore the second consecutive race at which Hamilton has failed to score a single points, and he drops ten points behind Felipe Massa's championship lead.Immediately after emerging from his Mercedes-powered car on Sunday afternoon, he dismissively refused to talk to the media, but later denied that he is struggling through a phase of frustration in his young career."I feel cool. It's all good. I'm still here, there's nothing you can do to get me out of it," he told reporters.In an apparent message to F1's decision-makers, Hamilton also insisted he has not been fazed by the recent spate of decisions that have gone against him."There's nothing you can do that can distract me. You can keep on giving me penalties and whatever you want to do and I'll keep battling and try and come back with a result," he added.Hamilton thinks he did nothing to deserve the drive-through penalty, which followed another controversial decision involving a McLaren driver this weekend, when Heikki Kovalainen was moved back five places for blocking during qualifying."I stayed out of trouble and drove what I thought was a fair race," Hamilton said.Referring to the Vettel pass, he explained: "I was ahead but I lost the back, corrected it and went over the kerb, which I don't particularly see as cheating, but rules are rules."
