Fernando Alonso has insisted he never had any issues with
Lewis Hamilton whilst the pair were team-mates at McLaren-Mercedes last year, stressing that it was the team that created the problems that were so avidly seized upon by the media over the course of the 2007
Formula 1 campaign.
Alonso parted company with the Woking-based outfit two years before his three-year contract was due for renewal last December, following a number of very public bust-ups with team principal Ron Dennis and – it appeared at the time – Hamilton.
The Spaniard rejoined
Renault for the 2008 season, and though he acknowledges that the Enstone-based squad – with whom he claimed both his drivers' world crowns in 2005 and 2006 – is ‘making progress', he has admitted that it remains a long way off podium-challenging form as he heads towards his home grand prix in Barcelona this weekend [see separate story –
click here].
The Alonso-Hamilton ‘feud' reached flashpoint status when the former was demoted five places on the Hungaroring grid in 2007 for having been deemed to have deliberately impeded the Briton during qualifying, after the 26-year-old waited 30 seconds in the pit-lane before heading out for his last run, meaning Hamilton failed to make it round the lap in time for his own final effort. Now, however, Alonso has moved to set the record straight.
“There is always a lot of talk about him and this antagonism that was created,” he told Spanish newspaper
El Pais, “but there was never any problem.
“People talk about Hungary, of the pit-stop, but it was not his fault. It was the team that should have taken steps – if I was supposed to leave first and make an extra round to burn more gas they should have made sure that things would be that way, but they weren't interested in all that.”
