New insight into Hamilton-Alonso 2007: “Problems, atmosphere, things happened…”

Hamilton, a feted prospect, was in his rookie F1 season and had the privilege of learning from the reigning world champion, Alonso, who was joining McLaren after consecutive titles at Renault.

But Hamilton beat his teammate Alonso in five out of six races early in the 2007 season - the lines were drawn in qualifying in Hungary, when the young prodigy would not allow the elder statesman to pass him.

“The problems were more within the team, to be honest,” said Mark Slade, Alonso’s engineer in that season, to Motorlat.

“The team atmosphere was pretty poor. I think a few things happened that exaggerated the problems that were there.

“I would say it could have been better handled from a management perspective and a team objective. Things didn’t work the way they should have done. Really we just threw away the championship in 2007.

“I think if Fernando had been backed properly, we probably would have won the ’07 and ’08 championships. Who knows what would have happened after that but there you go. It’s the way it was.”

Hamilton and Alonso retain a spiky relationship to this day. It flared up in the 2022 season - the Mercedes driver sent his Alpine counterpart a signed hat as a sarcastic apology after a collision in Belgium.

Alonso has also never quite shed his reputation as a difficult driver for teams to work with. Aston Martin will discover the truth next season.

But Slade denies that Alonso was ever challenging: “Working with Fernando was great.

“He is the terminator of Formula One, isn’t he? He just never gives up, and he’s just super fast.

“You just knew that you were working with someone who was trying desperately to win every race he entered, so that was fantastic.”

“I never had a problem with Fernando himself. I thoroughly enjoyed working with him.”