Lewis Hamilton buys Prince's gold guitar for $100,000

McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton has bought musician Prince's famous Fender Stratocaster gold guitar at an auction for $100,000 [£61,100]

Discussing the auction, held to raise funds for art, education and the environment, Prince told US TV host, George Lopez: "We got $100,000 for that, brother Lewis Hamilton, the racing car driver. It will be hard to part with."

Hamilton's purchase comes just days before he looks to make amends for his nightmare race in Malaysia last weekend at the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday.

Having driven second behind Sebastian Vettel in the early stages of the race Hamilton finished a lowly seventh and was subsequently relegated to eighth after being handed a 20 seconds penalty for defending his position with more than one change of direction in a battle with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

Despite the misfortune, Hamilton is nonetheless confident of McLaren’s chances in Shanghai and moreover that the team have what it takes to catch the Red Bulls.

“We've got some upgrades that we're trying to get to work, so hopefully they'll help us to fight. I definitely plan to be at the front this weekend," he said.

"We're knocking on their [Red Bull’s] doors, but from track to track it's going to change quite a bit," the 26-year-old Briton, a former world champion, warned ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix this weekend in Shanghai.

"In the last race, it looked like they stepped back – I don't think we improved or were closer.

"But I definitely feel we're right there in the chase. They do have a slight advantage, but I'm hoping we can find some performance this weekend so we can compete for the pole position."

Hamilton's team-mate Button shared his confidence ahead of the race in Shanghai insisting he has the pace to thwart Vettel's bid to become the first ever two-time winner on the circuit.

This weekend the young German is gunning for the dual honour of registering five wins on the spin while also becoming the only man to win twice in Shanghai since the race's inception in 2004.

But Button – also part of that merry band of Shanghai winners alongside Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Rubens Barrichello and Kimi Räikkönen – believes he can tear up the form book and deny Vettel his little moment of history come Sunday.

"If we get a nice clean race start, we could have a fun race and I think the pace [between McLaren and Red Bull] will be reasonably similar," Button said.

"I finished three seconds behind him [in Malaysia] but he definitely slowed down at the end of the race, but I don't think he did on every lap. Our pace was quite similar."

Source: The Telegraph