OCTOBER 19, 2016

Hamilton cannot be written off says Wehrlein

Mercedes has confirmed reports Lewis Hamilton will be summoned to appear yet again in the FIA's official press conference.

Mercedes has confirmed reports Lewis Hamilton will be summoned to appear yet again in the FIA's official press conference.

The world champion caused a stir at Suzuka by playing with 'Snapchat' throughout the Thursday event, and he then refused to take questions from the written media in a Mercedes-organised press conference on Saturday.

Bosses Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda, however, said the Briton would be back to top form in Austin, amid rumours the FIA would call him up again on Thursday.

Those rumours have now all been confirmed by Mercedes, who said Hamilton will indeed be in the FIA press conference on Thursday.

Not only that, Mercedes revealed that Hamilton will fulfil all of his TV and print media obligations in Austin, despite the 31-year-old having indicated that Suzuka may be the last time he answers questions from journalists.

At the same time, news was breaking this week that Hamilton will be a character in the next edition of the hugely-popular video game Call of Duty.

As for his title battle with teammate Nico Rosberg, many pundits are starting to write off the Briton but Pascal Wehrlein thinks Hamilton is still in the running.

"Both Mercedes drivers are geniuses in their own way," the Mercedes-backed Manor driver told Speed Week.

"I said it this way: one of them may be written off, but as soon as one of seems beaten, the other one has come back," Wehrlein said.

"So let's see how it turns out. For me, I think it's very, very exciting at the moment because of the way it goes back and forth between them," he added.

"Unfortunately Lewis has been unlucky a few times, and it's not easy to make up those points, but as I said, neither of them can be underestimated," added Wehrlein.

(GMM)