Hamilton says Button is still his equal at McLaren

Lewis Hamilton insists that he still has equal billing with his McLaren team mate Jenson Button after a weekend of mixed fortunes for the pair. Hamilton had a fine race at Spa and took the lead in the drivers championship by winning the Belgian Grand Prix, but Button's title hopes were left hanging by a thread after he was taken out of the race by Sebastian Vettel, who ruined both men's afternoons with yet another costly error.

Hamilton's victory means that he now has a three point lead over his Australian rival Mark Webber of Red Bull with just six races left to go this season. His year has completely turned round after a poor start, while Button has gone into a decline.

But despite the situation Hamilton says he does not want any preferential treatment from the team, even though he is now the only driver with a realistic chance of winning the title.

"I've just got to continue doing my job," he said. "I think if [my team are] giving me 100 per cent and they're giving Jenson 100 per cent then we're going improve twice as fast as a team. So as long as they're giving us both 100 per cent there's no problem. It works for us now so why not continue that?"

The statement of unity is in contrast to the situation at Red Bull, where the drivers are said to be at each other's throats, and Ferrari, who face a disciplinary hearing over the 'team orders' fiasco at the German Grand Prix.

The villain of Sunday's race was the 23-year-old German driver Sebastian Vettel, whose reckless manoeuvre on lap 16 ended with a collision that forced Button out of the race and earned the Red Bull man a drive-through penalty.

It is not the first time Vettel has been the engineer of his own (and others') misfortune this season. In May he cost his team a one-two finish when he collided with his teammate Webber. While earlier this month in Hungary he hung too far back behind the safety car and collected a drive-through penalty, blowing his chance of winning the race.

Branding Vettel "confused" after being taken out of the race, Button then wrote off Vettel's title credentials, saying that the German had only himself to blame.

"He's made too many mistakes this year to fight for the world championship but he is extremely quick, we can't take that away from him," Button said. "To get seven poles is extraordinary in the amount of races we've had (13), but to throw that many away is also very surprising."

McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh was less diplomatic in his criticism and branded Vettel a "crash kid", a tag the driver would do well to try and disassociate himself from in the coming weeks. ·