A week ago, he described him as his arch 'nemesis' in F1, but in today's Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang, Lewis Hamilton found former team-mate Fernando Alonso got just a little too close for comfort...
There has always been a degree of needle between
Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, right from the moment they were paired up together at McLaren-Mercedes in 2007 – so to some, perhaps, it will come as little surprise that their fight over the final step of the rostrum in today's Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang ultimately ended in tears.
Having run ahead of Alonso from the start and having at one stage even looked capable of taking the fight to
Red Bull Racing rival
Sebastian Vettel for victory, Hamilton slipped from the pace in the mid-to-latter stages of the race in Kuala Lumpur and was lying in third position when his former team-mate and the man he recently described as his 'nemesis' [see separate story –
click here] closed in on him.
After duelling for a little while, matters came to a head when with just ten laps left to run, Alonso – unable to attack on the straights following the failure of his DRS (Drag Reduction System) – made a misjudgement heading into Turn Four and clipped the back of the McLaren-Mercedes ahead of him, requiring a new front wing for his
Ferrari and leaving Hamilton with a damaged floor for the remainder of the grand prix.
They went on to take the chequered flag respectively sixth (Alonso) and seventh (Hamilton), although subsequent 20-second penalties for both [see separate story –
click here] dropped the British star a place down the order to eighth. For a race in which both drivers had clear designs on the podium, it was undeniably a disappointing manner in which to conclude the weekend.
“We were not lucky,” reflected Alonso. “If the moveable rear wing had worked all the time, I could easily have passed Hamilton down the straight, but instead we had to fight hard. He defended very well and, unfortunately, we touched – that broke my wing and I had to come back into the pits to change it, thus losing any chance of getting to the podium. These things happen; today went badly for me, but another time we will have better luck.
“I am still happy with this race, though – not with the result, but because we were finally competitive, capable of fighting wheel-to-wheel for a place on the podium. This is further motivation for the forthcoming race in China. Here, the car seemed capable of managing the tyres really well, which meant I could fight with the others. With the package we have today, we cannot fight for the win, but I hope that changes soon.
“In Shanghai, we realise we can expect another difficult weekend. We will have something new, but we don't know how much progress it will see us make. Everyone knows that, at the moment, we just have to grit our teeth and that's what we will do. There is still a long way to go in the championship, and we must leave nothing to chance.”
“Today was just one of those days,” mused a phlegmatic if visibly despondent Hamilton. “It's never satisfying to start second and finish seventh (prior to his penalty), and I did everything I could to keep up, but that's racing. We just have to take it on the chin and move on from it.
“At the start, I was on the outside going into the first corner. I got squeezed, and it was difficult to defend without risking hitting Jenson [Button – team-mate] or Nick [Heidfeld] – that was an awkward position to be in. Then, during the race, my tyres kept dropping off; we pitted earlier than was optimal – all the time we were pitting earlier than everyone [else] – and my tyres were done at the end. I'd hoped to make the end of the race on a set of used 'Primes', but they didn't last so we had to pit again, unfortunately.
