Fernando Alonso has admitted he sees a vital difference between his Formula 1 title fight with Lewis Hamilton in 2007 and the 2025 fight between the McLarens.
This year, the McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are fighting for their maiden championships, while Max Verstappen has been rapidly closing the gap.
This has caused multiple comparisons to the 2007 season, when Hamilton and Alonso fought for the title only to be snubbed in the final rounds by Kimi Raikkonen.
Zak Brown, McLaren’s CEO, even went as far as to say he’d rather see a repeat of 2007 than pick one driver to prioritise heading into the final stages of the season.
However, Alonso was quick to downplay the comparisons, pointing out what he considered to be one key difference between that campaign and the ongoing one.
“I don’t think the scenario is exactly the same,” he told the official F1 channel.
“In 2007, I remember Ron [Dennis, ex-McLaren boss] in China saying that ‘we were racing against Fernando’ – ‘our race was with Fernando, not with Kimi’.
“So imagine that Zak says now: ‘our race was with Oscar, not Max’. So a very different scenario.”
Hamilton on the teammate title fights
Hamilton also shared his view on the difficulties that teams face when both drivers are fighting for a championship, citing his duels with Nico Rosberg at Mercedes.
“I’ve had the experience of being in a team where you had two drivers fighting for a championship, and we went all the way to the last race, and ultimately we lost it. Both of us lost it,” he said.
“I don’t think any of the fans really particularly care, massively, about the Constructors’ Championship, that’s more the team cares about those sorts of things, and then we care – as drivers – about that for the team. But people care about the drivers’ championship.
“But choosing a driver is very difficult. I would say. Fortunately, I’m not a team manager. So I don’t have to worry about those decisions.”
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