Swiss switch for tax reasons, Hamilton tells TV's Parkinson

FORMULA 1's rising star Lewis Hamilton has admitted he is moving to Switzerland to avoid the taxman. Hamilton said the tax issue was a factor in his decision to quit Britain. The 22-year-old McLaren driver previously cited privacy as his sole reason for leaving.

But he made his admission on ITV1 chat show Parkinson. Presenter Michael Parkinson asked him: "Well, you say you are going to avoid the photographers and all that, but I will imagine that you have been advised to do so because of the tax also?" Hamilton replied: "Also, that definitely adds to it."

Parkinson said: "I just thought you were wrongly advised in a sense when you said you were going to avoid the press. If you want to live in Switzerland then that's your problem, in my view - I wouldn't live there for £50 million a week."

Stevenage-born Hamilton, who recently published his autobiography, maintained he also wants to escape media attention. "I'm just a normal person and it's quite an unreal experience. I have come from nowhere and been leapfrogged into being this superstar, and it's a really, really weird experience," he said.

"It was just the other night I went to my book signing with my dad and we drove home, got out of the car and got ambushed almost by some people that followed us all the way home. You sort of worry for a second, what do they want, and that's becoming more and more usual. I love my fans, I've got so many fans in the UK and all around the world, and it really makes a huge difference when I get home and I find I have all these letters.

"But I really want to live a normal life if I can, away from things and away from the race track. I just felt it was another way for me to do that. Also I'm going to learn French, that's something I've always wanted to do."

Elsewhere in the interview, Hamilton told how he was targeted by school bullies because he was so good at sport. "I was smaller than the others and I was never afraid to speak my mind, and when they were selecting football teams I was always one of the hardest players and one of the better ones. People didn't really like that and so I occasionally got picked on."

Hamilton learned karate in order to beat the bullies. He said: "I wanted to feel stronger and feel I wasn't going to be pushed over by anyone, to stand my own ground. It came in good use actually, when I was karting, when I had some sort of spiteful fights with people and I was able to defend myself."

• Parkinson is on ITV1 tonight at 10.35pm.

Renault engineer suspended over McLaren data

RENAULT'S Formula 1 team have suspended one of their engineers after the FIA charged them with possessing confidential data belonging to McLaren.

On Thursday, the FIA ordered the team to appear in Monaco before the World Motor Sport Council on 6 December, to answer a charge in relation to a breach of article 151c of the International Sporting Code.

In a statement the team said: "On 6 September it came to our attention that an engineer [Phil Mackereth] who joined the team from McLaren in September 2006 had brought with him some information considered to be proprietary to McLaren. This information was loaded at the request of Mr Mackereth on to his personal directory. This was done without the knowledge of anyone in authority and none of the information was used."

Renault added that MacKereth has been suspended, the records erased and the original documents returned to McLaren.