Hamilton contrite over Twitter blunder

Lewis Hamilton has acknowledged he needs to be more careful when using Twitter in the future.

The McLaren driver found himself at the centre of another furore on the social media site last Sunday when he criticised team-mate Jenson Button after believing his compatriot had unfollowed him. But the 27-year-old was left red-faced when he realised Button did not follow his Twitter account in the first place, and quickly posted an apology.

The incident came barely a month after Hamilton posted telemetry from his and Button's qualifying laps at the Belgian Grand Prix on Twitter, leading McLaren to order him to take it down. He has also posted several crude tweets where he used acronyms in place of explicit words.

The incident does little to help Hamilton as he tries to recover a 42-point deficit to championship leader Fernando Alonso before he begins a new three-year contract with Mercedes from next season.

And Hamilton admits he will need to alter his approach to using the site in future following his latest gaffe, saying: "Perhaps Twitter and I don't go together too well. I don't know what I am going to do.

"I like it because I like to be able to share the great experiences I have with the fans, but it is a fine line. Lots of people get it wrong and I am one of those, and I will hopefully try and improve on that. I obviously wasn't in the right frame of mind, but that's it. Hopefully I won't do it again."

Hamilton revealed he had apologised in person to Button as the teams gathered for the Korean Grand Prix.

"I just have to put my hands up and say I made a mistake," he said. "Sometimes we do that in the heat of the moment and you don't actually mean what you say, but there is nothing I can do. I apologised and that is it, we move forward.

"I apologised to him, I couldn't get hold of him on the phone as he had a night out on the Sunday, then he replied to me and then I saw him here today."

Button, meanwhile, was left bemused by the number of questions he was facing on the topic, saying: "People have their own opinion. For me it's amazing we are sat here talking about it at a grand prix. Lewis came and apologised which was good."