Hamilton says Alonso not talking to him now

Sports / Motor Racing

Hamilton says Alonso not talking to him now

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-08-06 08:43

Lewis Hamilton's rocky relationship with McLaren team mate Fernando
Alonso hit a wall of silence on Sunday.

The 22-year-old championship-leading rookie said after winning the
Hungarian Grand Prix that he and Alonso had not spoken since the Spaniard
was stripped of pole position for blocking the Briton in qualifying the
day before.

While Hamilton was promoted to the top slot on the starting grid and won,
double world champion Alonso was demoted to sixth place and finished
fourth.

That left him seven points behind his team mate with six races remaining.

"He doesn't seem to have been speaking to me since yesterday. So I don't
know if he has a problem," Hamilton told a news conference at the
Hungaroring.

McLaren were barred from scoring Formula One constructors' points in the
race, subject to any appeal, for their role in the qualifying incident.

Both drivers felt aggrieved by what happened on Saturday, with Hamilton
ignoring repeated requests from the team to allow Alonso to go past
earlier in the final qualifying session.

The Spaniard then held up Hamilton in the pit lane for long enough to
prevent the Briton beating his time in the dying seconds.

"I don't think either driver is blameless in this situation," team boss
Ron Dennis said.

APOLOGY MADE

Hamilton said he had apologised for a row with Dennis on the radio during
qualifying and had also spoken to team members.

"With Ron, obviously yesterday he wasn't very happy. We just had to be
professional and sat down and spoke about it and I told him my views," he
said.

"He respected those and said 'Okay, I respect that because its part of
your personality'...so we came to a mutual understanding and started with
a clean slate from today."

The Briton recognised however that he had arrived at the circuit on
Sunday with some trepidation.

"It was difficult to stay focused because obviously you had this feeling
in the team, that the team weren't getting any points," he said. "So you
didn't know whether the team hated you, or whether they just hated the
situation, who they blamed."

"I just tried to come in with a smile on my face and try to remain
positive through it all and do the same procedure as always," he added.

"So I did go around to the whole team and I said 'come on, let's do this,
good luck.' There was only one person that didn't (respond). That didn't
really affect me, I just got on and did my job."

Hamilton said that despite the frostiness of his team mate, he still
respected the Spaniard even if he had evident misgivings about his
sportsmanship.

"I thought that because of the argument I'd had with Ron over the radio
earlier -- and he was obviously angry -- I thought he was just teaching
me a lesson (in qualifying) and so I just took it on the chin.

"That's why when I came to the (Saturday) press conference I said that I
wouldn't have thought Fernando would do something like that. But I have
reasons to believe otherwise."

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