Don't call me a playboy, says angry Lewis

And Lewis Hamilton asked us to do precisely that ahead of tomorrow's Turkish Grand Prix.

Sure, he addressed the internal struggle at McLaren between himself, his emotional team-mate Fernando Alonso and boss Ron Dennis, but that was only part of what he wanted to get off his chest.

Since the Hungarian Grand Prix, when he and Alonso fell out in public after the Spaniard blocked him during qualifying, Hamilton has been taught the true price of being billed as potentially the highestearning sports star in history.

Pictures of him living it up on the 235ft yacht of Mansour Ojjeh, part owner of McLaren, and supposedly frolicking with his 'leggy' daughter Sara filled plenty of newspapers. It was suggested that he was going behind the back of his college sweetheart Jodia Ma.

The implication was that he was behaving like a cad. Such a judgment would appear harsh on an eligible 22-year-old even if it were true, something Hamilton was at pains to stress it is not.

He said: 'I'm not a playboy. The coverage was disappointing. I was supposed to go away with my friends on a lads' holiday but I thought it was a bad idea at the mid-point of the season where I'm leading the world championship.

'I needed just to relax, to recover and do some training. I was invited on to the Ojjehs' boat. They took care of me. There were 13 on the boat, including the three Ojjeh daughters. They all had their boyfriends there. We got on so well.

'I was not expecting to have pictures taken of me. What you don't see in the picture is the other 12 on the back of the boat also throwing each other in. It would not be so bad if I were getting together with all these women. I'm not. I found out the other day I've slept with Dido. I don't remember it.

'Then the thing with my exgirlfriend. We are both 22. We made a mutual decision to move on. Papers keep bringing up the split which is devastating to both of us. It's too early in our lives to do all that stuff. Now I'm supposing to be dating one of the Ojjehs. We are just friends.'

The next pictures of Hamilton 'captured' him on his return to Britain watching The Bourne Ultimatum at the Odeon, Marble Arch, in the presence of another mystery girl.

He provided the explanation: 'I went to the cinema with my best friend, his fiancee and my friend. They said he was my bodyguard and I was seeing this girl, cheating on someone else. It's not me.

'I have not gone out and bought loads of expensive cars. I'm not dating all these different women. If I was, fair play, write it. But I'm not. I'm trying to lead a normal life.'

If Hamilton was not already aware that his life will be played out in public, he should be now.

It is the down-side of driving cars faster than anyone else on the planet. Should he become the first rookie to take the world title, the coverage will step up to a new level. Hamilton's quest to fulfil his boyhood dream of claiming the most coveted crown in the sport continues in qualifying today in the sweltering heat of Istanbul.

The mercury crept up to 36C on the track yesterday, when the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa led the time-sheets in practice, with Hamilton top in the afternoon but short of the morning marks set by his rivals in red. Instead, the embers of his dispute with Alonso continued to smoulder.

Revealing the outcome of their clear-the-air talks on Thursday, Hamilton said: 'After the last race I called Fernando and said, "Look, we can't go through the next three weeks without talking, or relying on what the media are saying, saying we're at war. We're not."

'So I said we need to meet and discuss the last race and how we can move forward because at the end of the day we're team-mates and we need to get on.

'He said, "I totally agree." So we had to find a date to do that. He was busy and I was on holiday, so wedecidedwewould do it this week.

'Yesterday we met up and first of all we discussed how good our holidays were. It was just really relaxed and chilled.

'Then I put my hands up and apologised for everything that went on at the last race, and he said, "Yeah, me too".

'I said, "I have nothing against you. It may appear it was aimed at you, but we need to figure how we can move forward".'

A truce, you suspect, rather than love breaking out.

The real test will come in the closing six races of an absorbing season. Hamilton, so assured of his destiny, has the mental edge. Leading Alonso by seven points, the momentum is also with him.

Neither will give an inch which makes it hard for Dennis, who is struggling to referee his two wilful drivers. For the rest of us, hold tight and enjoy.