Hamilton vs Alonso: A fast-paced tale of jealousy and intense sporting rivalry

It was inevitable that the saccharine friendship between world champion Fernando Alonso and upstart rookie teammate Lewis Hamilton would go the way of all such relationships when the ante was upped by the pressures of intense sporting rivalry.

When Alonso was told by his McLaren team that Hamilton, then the reigning GP2 champion, would be his partner for 2007, he was a little nonplussed. After all, fellow countryman Pedro de la Rosa, who had replaced mercurial Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya partway through the 2006 season, was an experienced racer. Would Hamilton be able to score sufficient points to help the team to win the constructors' championship, Alonso wondered politely.

But their first real on-track encounter, at Hamilton's debut in Australia in March, swiftly put paid to such doubts. Blocked at the start by his former karting sparring partner Robert Kubica, Hamilton showed his mettle by diving round the outside of the Pole and, in doing so, also snatched a place from Alonso. It was food for thought for the Spaniard but not yet a trigger for red alert.

As the season continued, however, it became increasingly obvious that Hamilton was there to race, and to win. When Alonso had signed his deal with McLaren, back in December 2005, he had done so because of a conversation the previous October with McLaren team principal, Ron Dennis.

"It was at the Brazilian Grand Prix, where Juan Pablo and Kimi Raikkonen finished first and second for us, and Fernando's third place clinched him his first world championship," Dennis revealed. "I asked him why he had never considered driving for us and, to my surprise, he took the question as seriously as it was intended and we went from there."

Back then, Alonso was the unquestioned coming man, the youngest-ever world champion and the man who had toppled the mighty Michael Schumacher. In his final year with Renault, in 2006, he did it again, beating Schumacher for back-to-back titles. Hamilton, meanwhile, was building on his successes in karting, Formula Renault and Formula Three to leap into GP2, the series one rung below F1 on the racing ladder.

He won that championship at the first attempt and it became clear to everyone that Dennis would have to be mad not to put him into the vacant seat alongside the incoming Alonso for 2007. The kid was good, and he could do nothing but learn from Alonso, himself a former karting star who had eventually got his break in F1 with Minardi in 2001 after success in Formula 3000, the predecessor of GP2.

At times, Alonso had been unhappy at Renault that teammate Giancarlo Fisichella, whom he usually beat, had been allowed to get the better of him. He went to McLaren with the comfortable feeling that all the attention would be on him in the team's highly focused quest for success.

So, it didn't take long for feathers to get ruffled as Hamilton rattled off not just a record-annihilating run of nine consecutive podium finishes in his first nine grands prix, but actually won two races.

He made Alonso look like the rookie in Canada, where the Spaniard fell off the road four times trying to keep up, and he so rattled him while winning in America a week later that a petulant Alonso sped down the main straight on one lap so close to the pit wall that his team, which refused to tell Hamilton to move over, was sprayed with grit.

"I think when you look at the winter tests, Lewis was very quick and was very close in times comparing to Pedro and me," Alonso admitted publicly after Indianapolis. "So no big difference between the three drivers of the team. So, you know, why not fighting for victories, podiums and championship?

"But on the other hand, I think it has been a surprise for me and a surprise for everybody to see him doing so well and leading the championship. But, you know, I have big confidence. We only did seven races, 10 to go. So I'm very happy with my 48 points, and the championship will be decided at the end. Again, I have confidence that I can do it."

Dennis, of course, had seen all this before. He had, after all, been the man who partnered Ayrton Senna with Alain Prost at McLaren in 1988, and in the highly acrimonious 1989 season that saw them collide in the Japanese Grand Prix before Prost departed for arch-rival Ferrari.

Partnering Alonso and Hamilton had never seemed like that sort of risk, until Hamilton began to reveal his incredible talent. All drivers have a very good idea of where they fit into the overall scheme of things, and who they rate. It didn't take Alonso any time at all to realise that his original assessment of Hamilton was way off the mark. And yet they remained good buddies, even doing a knockabout advertisement for Mercedes-Benz in which they battle each other to check into a hotel, and to see who can beat the greatest heat in a sauna.

The Hungarian Grand Prix changed all that, and consigned the cordiality of their relationship to the sporting bench.

The team's strategy for qualifying called for Hamilton to let Alonso get ahead of him. He did not. "After my first run, I was sent out of the garage first and got to the end of the pit lane first," Hamilton said yesterday. "When I was there the team reminded me to let Fernando pass. I saw him staggered to my right in my mirrors, and Kimi [Ferrari driver Raikkonen] was very close.

"Immediately, I thought 'OK, I'll let Fernando past so long as doing so won't let Kimi past as well and spoil my run.' I thought I'd take the decision when I got round the first corner, and if Fernando was with me and we both had pace, I'd let him go.

"I pushed, but I don't know why he didn't. He actually fell back quite a bit. I was told again to let him past but he was miles behind so I just kept going. If he had stayed right with me, I would have let him past."

Alonso, feeling that Hamilton had compromised him, then deliberately loitered in the pits, ahead of Hamilton, before their final runs. By the time Hamilton's car was fitted with its final set of tyres, Alonso had embarked on the lap that would win him pole position, and Hamilton had run out of time for his own last attempt. Over the radio he roundly berated Dennis, whom at that time he believed to be the architect of his downfall because he had not obeyed orders.

"Don't you ever fucking do that to me again," he is alleged to have said to the man who gave him his big break. "Don't fucking speak to me like that," Dennis is said to have replied.

"Fucking swivel on it," Hamilton reportedly retorted.

Dennis would neither confirm nor deny it, but said: "I was quite firm on the radio, and he was reasonably firm back. We were both firm with each other. But that's life. It is extremely difficult to deal with two such competitive drivers. There are definite pressures within the team. We make no secret of it.

"They are both very competitive, and want to win, and we are trying our very hardest to balance those pressures. Today we were part of a process where it didn't work, and the end result is more pressure on the team.

"Obviously Lewis feels more uncomfortable with the situation than Fernando. That's life, that's the way it is, and if he feels too hot to talk about it then that's the way it is."

In Hungary, Alonso was the only member of the McLaren team not to wish Hamilton good luck before the start, as the contrite 22 year-old made an effort to patch things up in a team whose hard-working staff back at the factory would lose their bonus payments for the weekend which are linked to the number of points the team scores.

Besides dropping Alonso five places on the grid, the stewards had decreed that no constructors' championship points would be awarded to McLaren, whatever the outcome of the race.

"With Ron, obviously I wasn't happy," Hamilton said, "but you have to be professional so we sat down and I told him my views and he respected that they were part of my personality, so we came to a mutual understanding. It's still not great because of all the problems we are having already with the FIA, it's more pressure on the team.

"They asked me why I didn't do what they wanted. I said I made a mistake, I apologised, it won't happen again. Because of argument with Ron on the radio, obviously I was angry, and I thought he'd done it [created the delay with Fernando] to teach me a lesson, I took it on the chin, that's why I said I didn't think that Fernando would do something like that. But now I have reasons to believe otherwise.

"I've been working with Ron for nearly 10 years now. This was quite a big event, a problem for the team, but the relationship is very strong so we will move on."

Hamilton has never made any secret of his respect for Alonso. "That respect remains the same," he insisted yesterday. "When you grow up and see someone successful such as Fernando or Michael [Schumacher], you have to respect what they have achieved and what they do. I watched Fernando and really admired what he does. That hasn't changed."

But they are unlikely to cry upon one another's shoulders any more."It's always difficult, and I have had it in every team I have been in," Hamilton added; "you have two very, very competitive people, possibly the two most competitive around, both want to win, and that puts team under immense pressure, it's extremely hard on everyone. That's why sometimes it appears one is favoured over the other.

"We can go on from here. I am easy to get on with, I don't hold grudges. I'm still leading the world championship and I haven't lost my respect for Fernando. If he doesn't want to speak to me that's up to him, I'm open."

Sport's bitterest rivalries

ALAIN PROST VERSUS AYRTON SENNA, FORMULA ONE, 1989

In retrospect, the team-mates' rivalry was the stuff of Hollywood pastiche: a tempestuous Brazilian versus a thinking Frenchman. "Metaphorically," Prost once mused, "Senna wanted to destroy me." The destructive streak literally ran into the gravel in 1989 when the pair forced each other off the track at Suzuka. Senna tried to overtake Prost on a tight chicane, only for their McLarens to lock wheels and slide into early retirement.

GRAEME LE SAUX AND DAVID BATTY, FOOTBALL, 1995

Blackburn Rovers' strategy for winning the Champions' League was hoofed into touch during a League game against Spartak Moscow in 1995. Le Saux took the ball off Batty, and lost control, putting it out for a throw-in. Batty berated him, allegedly questioning his sexuality. The pair were pulled apart by their skipper Tim Sherwood, and later fined by their club. Blackburn lost 3-0.

ANDY CADDICK AND DARREN GOUGH, CRICKET, 2000

England bowlers Gough and Caddick's rivalry flared during England's long winter tour. Gough grudgingly acknowledged that Caddick was a better bowler; Caddick privately admitted the Yorkshireman had more star quality. But the pair competed over the number of wickets they took, with this light-hearted ribbage often playing out in more serious spats off the pitch. "With me and him there's no denying there's a rivalry," said Gough. "On his part."

TIGER WOODS AND PHIL MICKELSON, GOLF, 2004

It is no secret that the world's best two golfers were not talking to one another when US Ryder Cup captain Hal Sutton paired them up. They could not even look at each other at the first tee. Whereas Woods is organised, focused and smartly turned out, Mickelson operates with a more unruly instinct. In 2004 they both lost their matches. Fellow golfer Brad Faxon, who has played with the pair, said upon doing so he "felt like Switzerland".

SEBASTIAN COE V STEVE OVETT, ATHLETICS, 1980

Class featured along with ability in this contest between the world's foremost middle-distance runners of the late Seventies and early Eighties. They went head-to-head at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Ovett was favourite for the 1500m, Coe the 800m. But middle-class Sheffield gent Coe took silver in the 800m to Brighton wide boy Ovett's win. There was uproar, until Coe took the 1500m and denied Ovett his double.

ROB SHARP

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