Lewis Hamilton vs Fernando Alonso: The full war of words
Alonso raged via his team radio after Hamilton clipped him: “What an idiot!
“Closing the door from the outside.
“I mean, we had a mega-start but this guy only knows how to drive and start in first!”
Hamilton said on Sky about Alonso's “idiot” jibe: “It doesn’t really matter what he says. I don’t really care."
Hamilton accepted the blame for the incident: “Looking back at the footage he was in my blind spot.
“I didn’t give him space.
“It was my fault today.
“It was my fault, I couldn’t see him, he was in my blind spot.”
Max Verstappen chimed in by seemingly blaming Hamilton: “It was not a car's width.”
Alonso recalled how Hamilton had crashed out of Spa in the past: “It happened in the past, also, I remember with Nico Rosberg, the same thing. So it’s a tricky corner.”
But Alonso was calmer post-race when he said: “I was surprised and for sure, he now saw the incident and he takes responsibility, which is obviously very nice from him.
“It was a lap one incident, nothing really more to say there or the stewards. They didn’t say anything because these things happen in that corner.”
Alonso reflected on calling Hamilton an “idiot”: “I was angry on the radio.
“The radio, anyway, when you talk, you talk to your engineer and to your team.
“It’s a shame that sometimes everything is broadcasted, because if it’s broadcasted, this is what you say now [in the moment], this [right now] is how you behave in the media.
“When you’re talking on the radio it’s only a comment to your team, normally.”
Hamilton wasn’t ready to let the issue fade away: “It's nice to know how he feels about me. And so it's better that it's out in the open how he feels.”
Perhaps the most cutting comment was when Hamilton said: “We had different results in our careers!”
The Hamilton vs Alonso rivalry
The Brit and the Spaniard were teammates for McLaren in 2007 - Hamilton’s first season in F1.
Hamilton went on to become a seven-time world champion, and would have set an all-time record with an eighth if not for the events of Abu Dhabi 2021.
Alonso won two titles for Renault.
Alonso told PA in 2021 about his relationship with Hamilton: “We have this respectful relationship, but maybe it is colder than it used to be.
“We have different opinions on different things. Lewis has a different lifestyle to many of us and that separates us.”
They will go face to face again at this weekend’s F1 Dutch Grand Prix.
