McLaren fine with Hamilton's aggressive style

Hamilton has endured a difficult season, with some on-track incidents costing him valuable points and making him the subject of criticism from rivals.

Lowe has backed Hamilton's aggressive style, however, and says McLaren will not do anything to try and change that.

"Clearly he has made mistakes, all drivers do," said Lowe during a Vodafone phone-in on Wednesday. "Equally we want Lewis to make less mistakes, I guess, but we don't want to stop him driving in the way he does.

"I think he is the most entertaining driver we have out there; very, very fast, very good at pressing through the race even if he doesn't start from the front and that has allowed him to win 16 races and a world championship and we don't want to erode that spirit.

"That's what makes him what he is and that's what makes him the driver that everybody enjoys. Of course he will be thinking how do I make less mistakes but I think that's just a local blip personally."

Lowe conceded McLaren has also made mistakes during the year, and admits it did not give Hamilton a fast enough car to begin with.

"There are quite a few aspects to that. The first thing is we haven't delivered a car that's been quick enough generally and particularly in qualifying. Sebastian [Vettel] has done a fantastic job to get all the pole positions and we've tried very hard but unfortunately not been able to compete with that.

"That means even though in the race we had some of the fastest race paces, often faster than the Red Bulls, it's been more difficult to show that and deliver from it because we are not starting at the front. And it is easier to stay out of trouble if you start from the front so that is certainly a factor.

"But I don't think we should take away from what Red Bull have achieved and particularly what Sebastian has achieved. Their reliability rate both mechanically and operationally and driver-wise in terms of incidents has been extraordinary actually."

He added: "We've had good years, better years than this year. If you look back even look to 2007 Lewis had an extraordinary run of reliability both operationally and mechanical, and unfortunately we have not matched that level since then, but we work hard.

"It's about a lot of detail, a lot of stuff that isn't all the interesting getting in right. Bringing Sam Michael into the team as sporting director certainly will be a great help to some of the operational aspects. It involves across the board and I don't think it is just a matter of 'Lewis, don't make so many mistakes'.

"Everything in this world is complex, every incident has more to it. We have got to on the assistance side to make sure we are robust.