Hamilton in F1/NASCAR car swap

London: McLaren's 2008 Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton and NASCAR's double title winner Tony Stewart may swap cars later in the year as part of a promotional event for a mutual sponsor.

"It's an event that potentially we will be doing," Hamilton said, emphasising it was still in the planning stages.

Reports in America have said the event was likely to take place at Watkins Glen during the summer.

The 26-year-old Briton said he and Stewart had recently done some filming together in a studio where they good-naturedly bad-mouthed each other's cars.

"It was like 'You can't even drive those things. What is it? It's a tin top, like a can," said Hamilton. "He was like 'What is that? You can't even see over the steering wheel, you're like a child'. It was cool."

Hamilton made clear he had little serious interest in NASCAR, the most popular form of motor racing in the United States with Colombia's former Formula One driver Juan Pablo Montoya now a series regular.

Former McLaren driver Montoya and four times NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon drove each other's cars in a similar swap in 2003, years before the Colombian made the career switch, with the American impressing Montoya's then-team Williams.

"I'm not massively interested in it, to be honest," said Hamilton after a day at an airfield circuit in southern England where he gave reporters high speed 'taxi rides' in the new McLaren MP4-12C sportscar.

"I saw the steering wheel and it didn't look spectacular," he said of Stewart's Number 14 Chevrolet Impala. "It's not very hi-tech, I would say. I've got a huge amount of respect still for the drivers though."

Formula One currently has only one race in North America, the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal in June, but is due to return to the United States from 2012 with a race at a new circuit in Austin, Texas.

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