ISTANBUL, Turkey — Lewis Hamilton says he is not a playboy although recent tabloid reports and photos try to show him being just that.
During F-1’s summer break, Hamilton spent some time in the Mediterranean on a yacht owned by McLaren shareholder Mansour Ojjeh. Photos in the tabloids showed Hamilton, 22, frolicking with Ojjeh’s 18-year-old daughter.
“All those stories are completely wrong,” Hamilton said.
“I’m not a playboy,” he explained. “I haven’t gone out and bought lots of expensive cars, I’m not dating all these women. If I was, then play fair and write stuff about me. But I’m just trying to lead a normal life.”
Actually, the whole thing was a family get together. Lewis has known Ojjeh’s children most of his life. The photos made it look like Hamilton and one of the daughters were alone.
“There were 13 of us on the boat, and there were three of the Ojjeh daughters and they all had their boyfriends there,” Hamilton said. “When I first got there, I wasn’t expecting to have pictures taken of us, and what you don’t see in that picture is that there were 12 of us in the back of the boat throwing each other in.”
Hamilton said that paparazzi photographers are a growing irritation in his life and he may have to move away from England.

• To avoid a conflict of interest, Michiel Mol has resigned as CEO of Spyker Cars so that he can pursue his interest in buying the Spyker F-1 team from the parent company. The deadline for another payment to original owner Midland is looming.

• Fernando Alonso sported a Conquistador moustache and beard when he arrived in Turkey. Was that just to upset Ron Dennis, who likes his driver’s to be clean-cut? Alonso shaved it off Saturday.

• BMW Sauber has confirmed that Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica will drive for the team again in 2008. While the announcement wasn’t made until Aug. 21, the team never considered any other drivers.
“It was quite clear, both for us and the drivers, early on in the season that we wouldn’t really be looking elsewhere,” Mario Theissen said.
Heidfeld signed his contract after the Hungarian Grand Prix. Kubica signed his just a couple days after his horrific accident in the Canadian Grand Prix on June 10.
“We sealed him as a driver immediately after his crash, even before he got back into the car,” Theissen said. “It was a strong commitment from our side at that point. It was a strong commitment from our side at that point of the season.”

• McLaren used two pit stalls and crews during qualifying in Turkey to avoid the problems the team had in Hungary when both drivers were in the pits at the same time to get fresh tires.

• Felipe Massa won his fifth pole of the season. The first of his eight career poles came in Turkey one year ago. A mere .393 of a second separated the top five qualifiers.

• Spyker had to delay racing the updated B version of its car because it unexpectedly failed the rear-impact test. The team fielded two of its A-spec cars in Turkey instead.

• Was this the 100th grand prix race for Alonso and Toyota? It depends if you count Indianapolis in 2005 when the Michelin runners withdrew after the formation lap. F-1 statisticians can’t agree on the subject.

• Without so much as a podium to its name so far this season, Renault is now focusing a majority of its efforts on its 2008 car.
“We began work on the car early,” Technical Director Bob Bell explained, “and our approach has been quite different to recent years. First and foremost, we had to be certain that our development tools were working correctly. Once this was confirmed, we began putting a lot of energy into the design of the new car. The project is on time, and we have been exploring some very interesting new development paths.”

• Engine changes after qualifying meant that Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello had to start from the back of the grid in their Hondas.

• Lucas de Grassi and Timo Glock won the two GP2 races in Turkey.

• Three-time World Champion Niki Lauda says Alonso should keep quiet.
“Instead of complaining, moaning and bitching, which is what Alonso is doing at the moment, all he needs to do is concentrate on driving quicker,” Lauda said in a BBC interview. “He is using all kinds of excuses. He should have done this after the second or third race of the season after he realized how quick Hamilton is. He didn’t do that.”

• The Malaysian government has confirmed it has extended its grand prix contract to 2015.

• An engine caught fire on the dyno at Toyota’s F-1 factory in Cologne. Team personnel put it out before the fire department arrived.

• Prodrive’s David Richards says he is in discussion with three teams about supplying his new F-1 operation in 2008. McLaren is at the top of the list, but Richards said no announcement would be made before next month.

• Heikki Kovalainen is the only non-McLaren driver to have finished all the races this season.

• Flavio Briatore is part of a consortium that has bought the Queen’s Park Rangers, a second division soccer team in England. The flamboyant Renault boss says that this will not divert his attention from F-1 any more than his other business ventures such as his restaurant.

• In his newly released biography, David Coulthard reveals that he suffered from bulimia as a teenager. “In my mind the only way to keep my weight down was making myself vomit,” he said.