Lewis Hamilton has said that he will not be asking the McLaren team to give him preferential treatment after team-mate
Heikki Kovalainen made a strong start to their first season together.
Stung by a similar demand - to his detriment - during his tempestuous relationship with
Fernando Alonso in 2007, Hamilton insists that there is no-one he'd like to see win more than Kovalainen - provided all is fair in love and war. Hamilton gets on markedly better with the young Finn than he did with double world champion Alonso, and the pair have proven evenly matched in the battle with
Ferrari and
BMW Sauber so far this season.
The Briton's insistence on equality comes despite many believing that he should be undoubted team leader after the two drivers' respective 2007 seasons - where Hamilton was a title challenger in his rookie year and Kovalainen struggled at
Renault - but falls into line with
McLaren's own policy on fair treatment for both.
"If I am not winning, then I wish he was, and it is the same feeling vice-versa, so I want it to continue as it is - fair and square," Hamilton was quoted by the
BBC, "It would not be right for the team to push me ahead of him."
The spectre of 'team orders' - still technically outlawed by
F1 regulations - has raised its head as
Formula One prepares for its blue riband event in Monaco. The Principality was the scene of the first cracks in the Hamilton-Alonso accord, after the Briton suggested that carrying the number two plate on his car inferred that he was the number two driver. McLaren had been in a class of its own around the infamous street circuit, but Hamilton felt that he had not been allowed to challenge his team-mate for the lead, ending his 100 per cent record at Monaco.
