How Alonso and Hamilton's 2007 feud erupted: 'It's going to be a fight'

F1

Hamilton vs Alonso is now one of F1's greatest rivalries – race engineer Steve Hallam was right at the centre of the McLaren garage when relations first went cold

Lewis Hamilton Fernando Alonso McLaren2007 Italian GP

Hamilton and Alonso rivalry first began in 2007

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Lewis Hamilton vs Fernando Alonso: it’s a rivalry which has ebbed and flowed over the years, but had its embers stoked in 2023 by cars of similar performance.

Now the on-track dicing is taken in relative good spirit, the two fiery characters mellowed – slightly – by time and appreciating one day it won’t happen ever again.

In 2007 though, it was a relationship which was riven with bitterness and animosity, an elite-level partnership which soon descended into name-calling and petty on-track manoeuvres.

The rift emerged just five races into the season. Speaking in the latest episode of Motor Sport’s Engineering the Greats podcast, former McLaren race engineer Steve Hallam describes what it was like to be in the middle of a team at the moment it fractured into two warring factions.

Hamilton came through the junior ranks as McLaren’s chosen son, and was the surprise choice to make his 2007 F1 debut as team-mate to the reigning heavyweight champion Alonso, who had just secured back-to-back titles.

The 2006 GP2 series winner was supposed to be the dutiful understudy, but tore up the script in the first race of 2007 in Melbourne by overtaking Alonso into the first corner and running second for a large duration before finishing in third behind the Spaniard.

Lewis Hamilton Fernando Alonso McLaren 2007 Australian GP

Hamilton marked himself out as an immediate threat on Australian debut

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From here it was clear the youngster was a threat to the driver previously considered the F1 gold standard, and by Monaco four races later had decided he wasn’t going to be subdued into second-best by team orders.

“It started really well,” remembers Hallam, who was then head of race engineering and oversaw Alonso’s side of the garage.

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“The pace of Lewis very pleasantly surprised us all. He had a preparation for F1 way ahead of its time. We got to Melbourne and he was quick. Fernando was quick.

“I thought, ‘Oh, blimey, this is gonna be a tussle!’”

After four races Alonso had one race win, in Malaysia, but the rookie Hamilton led the championship by two points from the Spaniard. Alonso was keen to reassert himself in the title battle.

“We get to Monaco, and have the drivers running 1-2, with Fernando leading and Lewis second after the final pitstop,” says Hallam.

“The deal was: everybody turns the engines down, just go to the end and that’s the finishing order. So I told Fernando on the radio to reduce power.”

Hamilton however had already had his temper piqued. After being bottled up in second in the early stages, he’d been on course to over-cut Alonso and claim the lead. McLaren saw the danger and potential team recriminations ahead, and reacted by bringing him in early.

The young Brit had a point to prove by sidling up behind Alonso once more – leading to the team boss getting involved to take executive action.

Lewis Hamilton Fernando Alonso McLaren 2007 Monaco GP

Hamilton puts Alonso under pressure at Monaco, much to the latter’s displeasure

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“Fernando did as I said, but Lewis came right up to the back of him, so in retaliation the former turned it back up again, and gapped him a little bit.

“Fernando said to me ‘I’ll turn mine down when he turns his down.’ Ron then told Lewis’s team to reduce his power, and I think he then actually got on the radio himself.”

Eventually the drivers acquiesced, much to Hallam’s relief, and brought home the 1-2 in a much more fraught manner than McLaren anticipated. One of F1’s most bitter rivalries was just getting started.

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“Absolutely,” said Hamilton in the press conference when asked if he was trying to force Alonso into an error. “The only way to get past is to apply pressure.”

Hallam could already sense a relationship going wrong.

“Lewis was asked ‘How do you feel for finishing second Monaco on your first attempt?’ and he goes all glum and said, ‘Well, that’s why I’ve got No2 on my car.’

“I thought, ‘This is not how you should be behaving.’”

From here the title battle would spin out in a storyline worthy of Brad Pitt’s new F1 movie.

Hamilton would take a brilliant win in Canada – after which Alonso made comments about his British team favouring its British driver – and again at Indianapolis, during which the Spaniard gestured to McLaren that it should let him have the win due to apparently being faster, which it didn’t.

Alonso then famously blocked Hamilton in the Hungary pits in qualifying, before threatening to give the FIA incriminating evidence in the 2007 spygate scandal involving use of Ferrari design material, before Hamilton’s title challenge famously imploded – the McLaren pair finished the season with an equal tally, losing the drivers’ championship to Kimi Räikkönen by one point.

A furious Alonso would return to Renault for 2008, with Hamilton duking it out with Felipe Massa before winning his first crown. For Hallam, it marked the needless loss of potentially F1’s greatest team-mate pairing: “It’s a real shame, that sort of stuff.”

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