Lewis Hamilton has learnt nothing from his mistakes, is like a striker in football who always hits the woodwork and if he thinks he is Muhammad Ali, he is wrong, according to Flavio Briatore, the principal of the Renault Formula One team.

In an outspoken and unprovoked attack designed to take the British driver’s eye off the ball as he prepares for tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix, which could decide the outcome of this year’s championship, Briatore said he was sure that the title will go to Felipe Massa, of Ferrari, who starts the race five points adrift of Hamilton.

“Hamilton will try again to throw away the title,” Briatore said in a reference to the climax of last season, when Hamilton lost out on an historic rookie world drivers’ title despite having a 17-point lead with two races to go. “He and McLaren were good last year already: to lose it with a 17-point advantage with two races to go is worthy of the Guinness Book of Records. If someone gets in the Guinness like that, he can really repeat himself with just five points of advantage. In my opinion Massa will win the title.”

The Italian said that Hamilton’s rash move on Massa’s team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen, at last weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, which resulted in a penalty, showed that Hamilton had failed to learn from his mistakes in two seasons in Formula One. “Hamilton hasn’t learned anything: we saw that in Japan,” Briatore said. “He should be told he is a Formula One driver, not a Martian.

“He is no Muhammad Ali. He is a youngster who still has to show his worth. He’s a good driver, but the good drivers are also the ones that bring the results home. There are good forwards in football who always hit the post or the crossbar and they just can’t score.”

Briatore’s diatribe came a day after one of his drivers, Fernando Alonso, refused to retract the vow he made this week to help Massa to win the title if he can. It also came after further debate about Hamilton’s driving amid claims that Mark Webber, the Australian Red Bull driver who, like Alonso, is no friend of Hamilton, had said that the Briton will end up killing someone on the track because his style is too dangerous. Webber denied saying that Hamilton would kill anyone and had to clarify his remarks with the 23-year-old in person at the drivers’ pre-race briefing last night.

Briatore’s vitriol underlines that Hamilton, who can clinch the title tomorrow if he wins and Massa finishes lower than fourth, is being required to close out this championship in the teeth of bitter opposition to him from some sections of the paddock and against a background of a motor racing world sharply divided about his conduct in and out of the car. However, there will no mistaking the scale of his achievement if he becomes the youngest Formula One world champion in history.

On the track yesterday, Hamilton drove with precision and speed as he dominated two sessions of practice. Afterwards he dismissed suggestions that he might feel everyone was against him. “Not really,” he said. “I look at previous world champions and previous seasons, and a lot of people that have been at the front have had these kind of situations. It’s normal. I have to ride the wind and see how the result comes out in the end.”

Hamilton was unrepentant about a style in the cockpit that has thrilled his fans but attracted the attention of the stewards in two of the past four races. “I’ve not read the stuff, but I know people have made comments,” he said. “That’s fine with me. They have the right to their own opinion. It’s a shame they all think that way, but my driving is why I’m here and why I’m leading the championship, so I’m not disappointed with the way I drive. I do my talking on the track. If other people want to expend their energy thinking about it, that’s for them.”