Bring Back V10s’ latest trip into Formula 1’s V8 era is the Hungarian Grand Prix, as recently voted for by our members!
Karun Chandhok and Mark Hughes join Glenn Freeman to look back on a weekend where the Fernando Alonso/Lewis Hamilton rivalry exploded in qualifying, and we explore what was really going on behind the scenes – in particular between Alonso and McLaren team boss Ron Dennis.
This huge weekend in McLaren’s season also featured new developments in the spygate controversy, a case that would be reopened in the weeks that followed, after McLaren had initially been let off by the FIA!
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Great show. Anything about 2007 is very welcome!
Ultimately, Ron was weak. He never took control of the situation, and with hindsight, effectively allowed Hamilton to dictate the path of the team. Not that I can blame Lewis for being ambitious.
Mark is right that Alonso’s responses to the situation permanently damaged his standing. He could have been a 4-time champion by 2008 if he had just kept his head. 2007 went begging because of his own mistakes, and given how error-strewn 2008 was for Hamilton and Massa, he’d have had a strong chance in that McLaren as well.
Instead he went crawling back to Renault and wasted a couple of years, getting embroiled in another massive cheating scandal in the process.
Crazy season.
This was probably the first time Hamilton’s involvement in the whole affair was discussed in detail. I also never knew that Ron wasn’t yelling at Alonso’s trainer cause he was mad!
In the end, Mark’s summary was the correct one, this wasn’t Fernando v Lewis, it was Fernando v Ron.
If you watch the Alonso docuseries on Amazon, whenever his sister speaks, you can see how the family was clearly not impressed with how Ron/McLaren treated Alonso. There was a quote from his mother where she says something along the lines of “why would you go back to McLaren after what they did you?”.
