Stirling Moss: Lewis Hamilton isn't great yet, and he shouldn't spray podium girls

The Mercedes driver was in trouble in China this month, with the Briton aiming a stream of bubbly at a hostess.

"Champagne spraying didn't really exist in my day, it was brought in mostly by (American) Dan Gurney. I think he was the first person who did it," Moss told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

"With good looking girls, I think it would be rather nice to give them an embrace rather than cover them in champagne, frankly."

Moss also had some rather more pointed comments regarding Hamilton's achievements in the sport.

“I don’t think Lewis is great yet,” said Moss, 85. “We know Vettel is in there, and Alonso. And Lewis is slightly less valued than someone like Jim Clark but he’s certainly on the way.

“I would think if he clinches the title this year then he would be considered the same but you have to be very careful. Because him doing that is one thing but what Clark did to get to the same stage is different. It’s very difficult to appraise it.”

Moss also made the claim that: "The thing Lewis is really interested in is music, not driving.”

Hamilton was recently reported to be in talks with Jay-Z's record label about statrting a pop career.

Moss, now 85 and generally recognised as the greatest driver never to win a Formula One title, can otherwise see something of himself in Hamilton -- even if the 30-year-old has already won two championships.

The pair are both two times winners of the British Grand Prix, with Moss the first Briton to triumph on home soil in an epic 1955 race and Hamilton the most recent last year, and both with Mercedes.

The two men recently got together at the venerable Monza circuit near Milan to lap the ancient banking in the 1955 Mercedes that Moss used to win that year's Mille Miglia (thousand miles) road race from Brescia to Rome and back.

"He really was quite excited to drive the car," said the winner of 16 grands prix and four times F1 championship runner-up, at a book launch ("Stirling Moss: My Racing Life") to coincide with the 60th anniversary of his celebrated victory.

"The banking is terribly rough now but...he really enjoyed driving the thing. Whether he'd enjoy it if he had to race it I don't know."