Ron Dennis has revealed after many years of silence, the reason he believes the relationship between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton broke down when they both drove for the team in 2007.
In a joint interview with the official F1 website, Dennis and Bernie Ecclestone spoke about numerous topics from the past and present, before the obvious topic of Alonso vs Hamilton popped up.
Dennis, the team principal of McLaren at the time, simply reckons Alonso hadn’t expected Hamilton to be so competitive in his rookie year.
“It was very simple – Alonso didn’t expect Hamilton to be that competitive in his first year,” said the 63-year-old. “He told me at the beginning that it was my decision to sign a rookie like Hamilton, but that it could cost me the constructors’ championship.
“Fernando was calculating everything, but not that Lewis would challenge him. That affected him massively.”
The two then switched to the subject of inter-team rivalry, particularly the incident between Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber in Turkey earlier this year when the two collided.
Dennis took the opinion that the resultant media attention was great for a team which purely competes to further its brand.
“Every promoter, including Red Bull, should be happy about it. For weeks they have been in the media. Obviously nothing sells better than ‘bad news’.”
He then added: “Am I right Bernie?” To which the 79-year-old replied: “Absolutely!”
