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Alonso and McLaren: Never say Never

Fernando Alonso celebrates his controversial Hungary under the icy glare of Ron Dennis © Sutton Images

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On 4 August 2007, you would have bet that Fernando Alonso would never darken McLaren's door again. There were seven races to run and the chances of Alonso staying until the end of the season seemed unlikely after he had threatened to do naughty things with emails in the heat of the Spygate scandal.

Alonso was alleged to have demanded respect for what he believed to be his right as de facto number 1; he was, after all, a double world champion while team-mate Lewis Hamilton was merely a novice - a startlingly quick one, but a rookie nonetheless. Matters had come to an ugly head when Alonso made a provocative move by blocking Hamilton in the Hungaroring pits during the complex qualifying procedure necessary at the time, denying the rookie the chance to complete a late lap. The feeling was that the team could no longer trust him.

This was not mere antipathy; it was mutual loathing on a grand scale. As Murray Walker might have said that weekend in Hungary, you could cut the atmosphere in the McLaren Brand Centre with a cricket stump. To continue the sporting analogy, Alonso didn't want to play any more but couldn't walk off with the ball because Hamilton had firm hold of it and McLaren did not seem prepared to persuade Lewis to let go. The remaining races were run in an appallingly frigid atmosphere, highlighted by, among other things, Alonso running Hamilton wide at Spa and almost smashing a door from its hinges after a disappointing qualifying in Shanghai.

In the end, they both scored 109 points with four wins each, Hamilton having the edge on count-back with six second places to four for Alonso. The crucial fact is that the McLaren drivers finished just one point behind the 2007 champion, Kimi Raikkonen. You can debate the 'ifs' and 'buts' that affected both drivers but the undeniable fact remains that had they not been racing - or been allowed to race - each other, the driver's championship would have gone to McLaren. And some within the team reckoned that it should have been Alonso's third title.

"It was obvious the guy was quick," an insider told me when referring, off the record, to the Spaniard. "We blew the chance - but so did he. Some of us quietly tried to tell him that we were with him and just to focus on his racing, do his job and not worry about the other guy. But he wouldn't listen. Actually, part of the problem was the people breathing in his ear; he was badly advised and the whole thing got out of hand. It didn't need to. The Spygate stuff was nothing to do with him; he should just have got on with it and ignored Lewis and everything else."

As recently as last September, Fernando stressed he'd never had a problem with Lewis in 2007; another way of saying the difficulty was actually with the team management, specifically Ron Dennis. The fact that they have agreed to work together again is typical of the pragmatism that has always driven the need to win. As Sir Frank Williams used to say with his engaging smile when re-employing someone he couldn't wait to see the back of a few years before: "Circumstances change".

And so they have at McLaren. Seven years going on eight is a life-time in this business and, during that period, Dennis's brief absence from the racing helm has probably allowed time for reassessment. The 2007 season was a very difficult one, not least because of Spygate tearing McLaren apart but also because the team was focussed too much on protecting their young protégé at the expense of a champion who, when all is said and done, needs support and reassurance just as much as any other driver, even if he won't admit it.

Either way, 2007 is water that's long gone under a bridge that clearly has been rebuilt. Determining its strength against a robust current will be a fascinating aspect of 2015.

Maurice Hamilton writes for ESPN F1.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

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