1992 world champion Nigel Mansell has launched a surprising attack on 2008 champ Lewis Hamilton, claiming the McLaren driver has had it too easy and is manfuctured.

If ever a driver polarised the fans it was Mansell, the self styled People's Champion. Fact is, in the car he was one of the greats, a true legend, but once he was out of it, especially when placed in front of a camera, a microphone or a group of reporters, he was widely acknowledged to be a pain in the derriere.

In recent years he's appeared more settled, less whiny and controversial, until today, when he decided to stick it to one of the most popular of the new breed of drivers, Lewis Hamilton.

"I think sometimes it all becomes too easy," the Birmingham born racer told an audience at the Hay Literary Festival. "People have asked me, 'What do you think of Lewis Hamilton?'. I've said, 'Well, it's fantastic what he has achieved, but he's been manufactured'.

"How many people from seven years of age have been given £2.5million to go karting?" he continued. "I don't decry what Lewis has done, but when he initially started having tough times last year, he didn't handle it well. That's the first time ever in his life he has had a tough time."

When racing in F1, Mansell - who at times was uncannily reminiscent of one of the characters from Monty Python's four Yorkshireman skectch* - made much of his working class background and the fact that, though married, he sold his house to pay for his racing.

* = "We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!"