Coulthard clarifies Hamilton comments

Hamilton, the GP2 champion, will make his Grand Prix debut in Australia in March, with high expectations placed on him after winning every championship he has taken part in.

Speaking to the News of the World newspaper at the end of last year, Coulthard was quoted as saying that McLaren have given Hamilton, who will partner world champion Fernando Alonso, his break in Formula One too early.

"I believe McLaren have given him his break way too soon. He could face a very tough time with Alonso as his teammate," Coulthard was quoted as saying.

"Alonso may be new to McLaren but he is a double world champion. The first person you are compared to is your teammate and if Lewis struggles alongside Alonso it could destroy his confidence."

On Friday, however, Coulthard said his comments had been taken out of context, and the Scot believes Hamilton deserves to be in Formula One.

"Right, I am going to be very clear with my words here because I don't want anything taken out of context," said Coulthard when asked about Hamilton's accident during testing at Valencia yesterday.

"I got credited with saying that McLaren had made a bad decision and the guy is too young, etc. But I never said that.

"Lewis is clearly a talent. I know him, he is a friend and I have known him since he was a little boy. I have helped him at various points during his career when he came asking for help, so why would I want to say anything negative about someone I believe is a clear talent and deserves to be in F1?

"What I made was an absolute factual observation in that you cannot know as much today as he will know when he is 24, because he will have two more years experience then. That is a fact. So in trying to make an obvious statement it got misunderstood, the quotes got picked out and it turned into this sensational thing.

"So I see no link between his age and the fact he crashed a car yesterday, because Michael (Schumacher) crashes cars and did at the end of his career. It has nothing to do with that.

"At McLaren, typically either Mika (Hakkinen), Kimi (Raikkonen) or I, would have one big shunt a year in winter testing through car failure.

"When you push things to the absolute limit and you are designing news cars that have never run before then occasionally they fail. That is the risk side of the business."