- Mercedes
Mercedes will struggle to keep drivers happy - Alonso
Fernando Alonso thinks Mercedes' top management have a near-impossible job to keep both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg happy this season.
The title fight between the Mercedes drivers took a dramatic turn at the Belgian Grand Prix when they made contact on the second lap of the race. The resulting puncture ruined Hamilton's race and he claimed Rosberg admitted to causing the collision on purpose after the race.
Alonso, who was involved in a bitter title fight with Hamilton when they were McLaren team-mates in 2007, believes Mercedes will struggle to keep both drivers happy for the remainder of the year.
"They have touched a little bit [on track] and there will be some talks about this, but it's difficult," Alonso said. "If a team lets the drivers fight and they don't touch, that team is fantastic. But when they do touch that team is not good anymore.
"It's a very narrow line to make everyone happy. They are leading both championships with big margins, so they are doing something good. Part of the problem they can have is because they are dominating everything. From the outside it's difficult to judge any other team.
"They have been racing fantastically well all season and we have been saying how good they were fighting and how good the team was for letting them fight. Bahrain, for example, was a fantastic fight and a fantastic race that everyone enjoyed."
The incident in Belgium allowed Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo to win the race and close in on the Mercedes drivers in the championship. But Alonso does not think Ricciardo stands a realistic chance of battling for the title.
"I don't think so. He's doing an amazing job and surprising everyone, but the Mercedes advantage - two seconds in qualifying at Spa - sooner or later they will keep increasing their advantage when they finish a race. If one of the rest can do it, it's only Ricciardo."
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