McLaren will not ask Lewis to change

The 2011 Formula One World Championship has been a frustrating season for the McLaren team.

A radical new design was behind schedule in pre-season leaving the team to play catch up during winter testing.

Problems for pace left McLaren struggling heading into the new season before a late change saw McLaren have an unexpected good run in Australia.

Throughout the season however the teams performance has failed to be consistent and both Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button have struggled in stages.

Jenson Button currently sits fourth in the drivers standings 110-points behind leader Sebastian Vettel, while Lewis Hamilton is fifth, 3-points behind his team-mate. McLaren's form has left both drivers frustrated at times, especially Hamilton.

'Obviously he came into the season with great hopes of winning the championship and that's going to be an upward struggle from here.' McLaren principal race engineer Phil Prew said to the BBC.

It's been a difficult year for the 2008 Formula One World champion with the media, former drivers and current drivers all voicing their opinion on Hamilton's driving style, with some more critical than others.

'Pushing hard brings some consequences of high risk. I think that's what we're seeing.

'We will not ask him to change. Lewis is Lewis. He gets results with a very charging, aggressive approach. We fully support that. We've seen it's won him championships and that's our intention.' Prew concluded.

While Hamilton has been involved in some highly talked about incidents, his retirement in Belgium was only his second of the season.

The first came in Canada when he made contact with team-mate Jenson Button and the second came following the Kobayashi incident.

Hamilton took full responsibility for that collision, however our VF1 users disagreed with 69% believing it was Kobayashi's fault, 15% thinking it was a 50-50 racing incident and 16% agreeing that it was Hamilton's fault.