Lewis Hamilton has revealed he pushed for Jenson Button to be his team-mate, rather than rebelled against it.

Hamilton claims, at a time when McLaren were actively looking for a replacement for Heikki Kovalainen, he placed a call to team principal Martin Whitmarsh suggesting Button. The irony is, according to Button, he was quietly prodding Hamilton for information about McLaren's situation, somewhat remarkably even before he became world champion with Brawn GP.

From Hamilton's perspective, it dispels the myth he did not want a strong team-mate such as Button after two years of putting Kovalainen in the shade. Hamilton said: "Something you won't know is that I actually called Martin and said 'What about Jenson?', which was before they had negotiations."

He added: "At the time I was calling them and asking them, 'What's going on? I keep reading all these different stories about different drivers. What's happening?'.

"Fortunately I would be told who they were talking to, but I had absolutely no input into who they would pick.

"So I would say, 'Have you spoken to this person? Have you spoken to Jenson?'.

"And why Jenson? Because he is the best driver there is, and they wanted to get the best driver possible.

"I just wanted to find out because people kept asking me as to who was going to be my team-mate.

"I was happy with the team-mate I had, but it seemed like they were looking for someone else."