Alonso can quit team if he wants to, says Dennis

The McLaren team principal, Ron Dennis, is fully expecting Fernando Alonso to see out his contract with McLaren – but he will not stand in the way of the reigning double world champion should he choose to quit the championship-leading outfit.

Alonso's future with McLaren has been called into question in the wake of an explosive weekend for the team at the Hungarian Grand Prix. The 26-year-old's relationship with Dennis appears at rock bottom, following a bitter disagreement during qualifying in which Alonso was deemed to have impeded his team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the pit lane, costing the Briton a final qualifying lap bid to secure pole position.

And Dennis has been quick to stress that the team's value of fair competition is sacrosanct and anyone not prepared to tow the line can leave.

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"We have built the team and company on parity," said Dennis. "There are many teams who share that value, but do not have either a competitive racing car or two competitive racing drivers. When you get a combination of those two values you are definitely going to have a hard time.

"But if you go down an alternative route you end up with a team that has only one car and one driver and you inevitably have to have a very declared interest in one particular driver. I don't think that's the way to go about winning world titles.

"So we will continue to function as a team with specific values, and if anybody does not want to be part of those values – irrespective of where they sit in the organisation – ultimately they all have a choice. But we will not deviate away from our values."

Nobody has ever accused Alonso of being a wallflower. But at the weekend the reigning world champion moved out of the "sportsman" category and stepped into the rarefied atmosphere inhabited formerly by men such as Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. Those who will do anything to win, but do not necessarily always own up to it.

Last year, at Monza during qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, Alonso was penalised for inadvertently impeding Felipe Massa on his final attempt, while warming up for his own. The interpretation of the rule about blocking other drivers (which involves the effect of aerodynamic interference when cars run within 100 yards of one another) was widely regarded as unfair, as Alonso had had no intention of holding up Massa's Ferrari. Bitterly disappointed, he railed: "I tried my best for my championship fight and for all the fans who came here today like they do in Spain. I am a sportsman and I never deliberately blocked anyone."

In qualifying in Budapest on Saturday, he did block Hamilton during their final pit stop by sitting ahead of him for 20 seconds while the team allegedly awaited the right time to release him, and then for a further 10 seconds until Hamilton ran out of time to make his own all-out final effort. Alonso, in the meantime, got his own lap in and took the pole until the stewards unravelled what he had done and then docked him five grid places.

"The explanation given by Alonso as to why at the expiration of the 20-second period he remained in his pit stop position for a further 10 seconds is not accepted," the stewards said. "We find that he unnecessarily impeded another driver, Hamilton."

Alonso said Hamilton had not respected orders from the team to allow him to pass, so he could have an agreed extra flying lap. "They told Hamilton what to do and he didn't seem to listen," Alonso said. "That was the only problem the team had. Ron's [team principal Ron Dennis] anger was because he [Hamilton] didn't accept an order that the team repeated several times over the first lap.

"Therefore, the team did all they had to do, and tried to give me that extra lap, but for those reasons it wasn't possible.

"I have nothing against him [Hamilton]. I was going to have an extra lap of fuel, and I didn't have it, but in the end I got pole."

But he did it by delaying his team-mate for that crucial extra 10 seconds, something he refuses to concede.

While Hamilton was not himself blameless, since his refusal not to let Alonso pass him did indeed go against team strategy, his was at least a logical rather than an underhand act. Alonso did not stay with him on the track early in the final part of the session, so Hamilton did not see why he should virtually slow down and stop until he finally caught up.

"He really impressed me being so tough on that," said the TV commentator David Kennedy, himself a hardened racer at Formula One level in the past. "He stood his ground in the press conference, and his body language is that of a street fighter. He's still the rookie, but he isn't going to get bowled over. A guy can be geared up for the car and different when he gets out of it, but Lewis is just as tough as Fernando."

Certainly, while revealing much of the hitherto hidden inner emotion that drives him, Alonso is also now openly displaying all of the steely resolve that won him two titles against Michael Schumacher. Hungary demonstrated that the gloves are now off. Hamilton said that there was only one person who did not wish him good luck prior to the start, and it was obvious who he meant.

"I am now seven points behind Lewis," Alonso said after finishing fourth on Sunday as Hamilton won. "The fight for the championship is still open and I will try my best to close the gap."

As Kennedy remarked, "We've got a clash of the Titans there, haven't we?"