Hamilton: McLaren not favouring Alonso

The recent controversy of the 'team orders' situation at the Monaco Grand Prix was fuelled when Hamilton told reporters after the race that he knew he was the 'number two' driver at the team.

But with McLaren cleared by the FIA of any wrongdoing for telling their drivers to hold position in Monaco, Hamilton has also made it clear that he is confident of completely equal treatment himself.

"The team give me the exact same car as Fernando," said Hamilton, speaking at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Thursday. "I have got a fantastic group of guys working on my car, who are as good as Fernando's guys, if not better.

"I have got a real strong belief in them, and all the guys here want to win. No one is biased; they are very, very level and very equal. That is not exactly how it sounded, and I think people took it (the comments) out of context and made it sound a lot worse than it actually was."

When asked whether he felt he had an equal opportunity to win the championship, Hamilton replied: "I feel I have. I feel the team are going to give me the car, me and Fernando, the car to win and I feel it is going to come down to the end (of the season).

"It will be just at the end who is the most consistent and who makes the least mistakes. I think it is going to be tight all the way."

Hamilton has said he did not expect the team orders situation to become such a big talking point after Monte Carlo - with the British newspapers in particular being very critical of McLaren's actions.

"I didn't really focus on it too much, but I could see it (the story) was just getting bigger and bigger," explained Hamilton. "I was quite surprised that such a big thing was made out of it.

"At the end of the day when you look at it, we were the most successful team at the weekend and we did a fantastic job with both drivers. When we came away from it people weren't focusing on that, they were focusing on something else."

Hamilton did admit, however, that it had been hard to accept the disappointment of finishing second in the race to teammate Fernando Alonso.

"I was happy but it is just tough when the car is great, everything is going well, you know you have got the pace, and you don't maximise it. So some of the disappointment came from myself.

"But Alonso did a fantastic job in the race and there is no doubt he did the best job and deserved to win."

He added: "My time will come though. I am only 22. We have got time."