Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were team-mates at McLaren in 2007, with both of them in contention for the championship title
Lewis Hamilton‘s debut season in 2007 is one of the most controversial editions in F1 history, owing to his fall out with team-mate Fernando Alonso. Alonso and Hamilton were both serious contenders for the title and the Spaniard often complained in public that Hamilton is getting an undue advantage from McLaren since he is a British driver. Alonso retaliated on his own on multiple occasions but what happened at the Hungarian GP is still fresh in the memory of all F1 fans.
At the stage when this incident happened, Hamilton was leading the qualifying and the final laps were bound to be quicker on fresh tyres. McLaren chose to call both cars in the pits, holding Alonso for around 20 seconds with Hamilton stuck behind in an attempt to give their drivers as much track space as possible.
The lollipop was lifted for Alonso with one minute and 48 seconds left in the session, ample time for both drivers to complete their low-fuel laps. However, Alonso purposely stayed in the pits for about 10 more seconds which meant Hamilton had been held up by 10 seconds and didn’t have enough time for a final flying lap. Alonso, meanwhile, had snatched pole by a mere 0.107 seconds.
Fans react to Lewis Hamilton – Fernando Alonso throwback video on Twitter
Let us take a look at a few current reactions from fans on Twitter on this incident.
“It was petty indeed, but just remember that Fernando raced against (and therefore learnt from) Michael Schumacher, whose racing antics are very well documented”, wrote a fan.
“Lewis slows down to try and stop Niko winning a title but that goat behaviour for you I’m guessing. He tried to win these helped. Not petty at all”, wrote another fan, who doesn’t quite agree that Alonso was being petty.
“Alonso is a broken man, bitter about everyone who has more than him. He will turn on Max once he has his second title”, tweeted another fan.
“Funny thing is if Alonso didn’t do that and so get the grid penalty he would have won the championship in 2007”, read another tweet.
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