text: Lewis Hamilton is getting inside teammate Nico Rosberg’s head as the German bids to win his first World Championship title, according to two time winner Mika Hakkinen. Rosberg accused Mercedes team-mate Hamilton of deliberately compromising his race at last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix by slowing down but Mika Hakkinen said the British driver’s tactics, which saw him win a third consecutive Grand Prix ahead of the German, were entirely legitimate. ‘If you are leading a race that's a fantastic place to be and what goes in your mind when you are leading into finish the race first,’ said Hakkinen. Lewis Hamilton celebrates his win with the Mercedes team, but Nico Rosberg appears less pleased with 2nd . Rosberg accused Hamilton of being selfish by driving too slow and compromising his second position . Hamilton crossed the line to claim his second win of the season and his fourth in China . ‘So you do everything with the team in the right way so you are able to finish the race first. If you have to save tyres, brakes, engine, gearbox whatever it is, that's what you do. 'You don't think about the guy behind you, what he is feeling, how his car is handling or how you want his car to handle at the end of the race you just take care of your own stuff. ‘I have been in this situation with Michael [Schumacher] where where I was much quicker than him and he was definitely challenging me in a very interesting way,’ added Hakkinen. ‘What Lewis and Nico are going through at the moment, they are having a very difficult challenge, already last year and there are challenges continuing this year between them. Rosberg responded to a fan who accused him of 'crying' after he complained about Hamilton . Former world champion Mika Hakkinen says Hamilton was well within his rights to look after himself . Hamilton celebrates with with his trophy and bottle of champagne after his race win . 'They are the drivers with the best possible chance of winning at the moment. It requires a lot of nerves from the drivers to be able to be a good racing driver and not to start fighting because it doesn't make any difference.’ Hamilton, who is bidding to win a third World Championship title this season, has out-qualified and out-raced Rosberg in all three grand prix and Rosberg will likely be feeling the pressure according to Hakkinen. ‘Nico has definitely got big pressure on him,’ said Hakkinen, ‘He doesn't know how it feels to be a world champion and doesn't know what confidence a world championship generates inside you when you are racing driver. ‘He is still hunting that feeling. He wants to win but first he has to beat Lewis but Nico is a great driver and if you look at the qualifying result at the last grand prix the time difference was hardly nothing. I don't say that pole position is the key point to win a grand prix certainly it helps to start in pole.’ Lewis, many congratulations. Was the race as expected in terms of the challenge from Ferrari and, also, can you talk us through that radio message you got from the team about speeding up? Were you aware that Nico was getting so backed-up towards Sebastian Vettel? LH: I wasn’t controlling his race, I was controlling my own race but, great race, I’m really happy. Definitely going into the race we thought it would be a lot closer and we knew the Ferraris were very, very good with their long run pace and also looking after their tyres. So, today the real goal was to manage the tyres. And, as I said, my goal was to look after my car. I had no real threat from Nico through the whole race. So, I just managed it and got to really enjoy it, to be honest. A few of the real good fun laps were the laps before the pitstop, which I really enjoyed. Ultimately it was a much smoother weekend than we had in the last race where we got the whole, full practice sessions, on my side of the garage at least. And it made a real big difference to the balance of the car for the race. So really happy, and yeah, kinda excited. Q: Nico, can you talk us through your view of the race today. Started second, finished second but you sounded at times as though you felt at times under a little bit of unnecessary pressure maybe? NR: No. It’s just now interesting to hear from you, Lewis, that you were just thinking about yourself with the pace in front, and necessarily that was compromising my race. Driving slower than was maybe necessary at the beginning of stints meant that Sebastian was very close to me and that opened up the opportunity for Sebastian to try that early pit-stop to try and jump me. And then I had to cover him. So, first of all it was unnecessarily close with Sebastian as a result, and also it cost me a lot of race time as a result because I had to cover him and then my tyres died at the end of the race because my stint was just so much longer. So I’m unhappy about that, of course, today. Other than that, not much to say. Q: Lewis, would you like to respond? LH: Not really! My job is not to… it’s not my job to look after Nico’s race. My job’s to manage the car and bring the car home as healthy and as fast as possible – and that’s what I did. I didn’t do anything intentionally to slow any of the cars up. I just was focussing on myself. If Nico wanted to get by he could have tried but he didn’t.
target: Lewis Hamilton won the Chinese GP with Nico Rosberg finishing second .
  Rosberg accused his team-mate of being selfish by driving too slow .
  Mika Hakkinen says Hamilton was right to worry about his own race .
  READ: Hamilton insists Rosberg was not trying to win in Shanghai .
  READ: Hamilton ready for Rosberg's underhand tactics .