» Another day, another retraction…

No doubt after a fairly details exchange of views with team figures, sponsors and PR representatives, McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton has performed a miraculous about-face and recanted his earlier claims that the 2011 championship crown was all but lost to Sebastian Vettel.

After yet again seeing Vettel claim another race win at last weekend’s European Grand Prix, both Hamilton and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso offered comments suggesting that they were abandoning any hope of challenging for this year’s Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship crown.

As rather aptly put from Sunday Express journalist Bob McKenzie, Hamilton arose from the Valencia race – where he finished a distant fourth – “with a flea in his ear from McLaren”.

“To all our supporters, ignore what you read in the papers today. My team will never give up and I will never give up!” Hamilton exclaimed on his Twitter feed on Monday.

Perhaps this is best treated as another example of not deferring to the PR team before engaging with the media…