Sky F1 commentator Martin Brundle believes the relationship between former world champions Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso remains frosty after the two battled around the streets of Monte Carlo at the Monaco Grand Prix last weekend.
Hamilton grew increasingly frustrated with Alonso’s pace during the final tyre stint of the race, with his ex-McLaren teammate struggling to find the pace as Lando Norris pulled away in sixth. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff lent his thoughts on the matter, claiming the Spaniard was driving at a pace more resembling of Formula 2 as he patrolled around the principality.
Alonso responded by claiming that his Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon was stuck behind Hamilton once the two-time world champion finally began to push. The Frenchman had already picked up a five-second penalty after colliding with Hamilton earlier in the race, with the incident forcing him out of the points from ninth to P12.
It’s clear that there is, on some level at least, some form of animosity between Alonso and Hamilton, who were McLaren teammates back in 2007. Brundle believes there is still friction stemming back to that ill-fated campaign.
“[Lando] Norris had that luxury of an extra stop because behind him Fernando Alonso went into a steady, but necessary for him, tyre preservation mode with the rest of the field queued up behind him, starting with a very frustrated Lewis Hamilton,” Brundle wrote in his Sky F1 column. “‘That's not my problem’ said Fernando, and you can't help but sense there's still needle between them after their McLaren season as teammates back in 2007.
“Fernando then bizarrely took off for a while and did the third fastest lap of the race to retain 7th place.”
It meant Hamilton could only finish eighth, but his Mercedes partner George Russell once again finished in the top five for the seventh-straight race of 2022. The Brit finished P5 in Monaco but couldn’t match the pace of the frontrunners.
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“George Russell put in yet another fine drive for Mercedes to take 5th,” Brundle commented. “He ended up just two-tenths ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris who also achieved fastest lap on his fresh medium tyres, fitted on Lap 51 of what became a shortened and timed-out 64 lap race (instead of the scheduled 78) in a curious elapsed time of one hour and fifty six and a half minutes of racing.”
The result means Russell is now on 84 points, 34 clear of Hamilton in the Drivers’ Championship. Red Bull star and reigning world champion Max Verstappen leads the standings with 125 - nine points clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
The 22-race F1 2022 campaign continues with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku on June 12.
