Lewis Hamilton has revealed his experience of going up against the two-time world champion Fernando Alonso in his rookie year.
Lewis Hamilton debuted in Formula 1 in 2007 with McLaren and his first teammate was two-times and defending world champion Fernando Alonso.
He went up against his teammate in his rookie year and gave birth to his first of the many rivalries to come in F1. Throughout the 2007 season, Hamilton and Alonso were involved in a fierce rivalry. The rivalry also led to Alonso and McLaren terminating their contract.
However, neither Alonso nor Hamilton won that season. The 2007 title was won by Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen while Hamilton finished runner-up by one point.
In an unearthed video, Hamilton has described what it was like going up against the two-time world champion as a rookie.
The Briton said, “the first year, I’m at McLaren, I’ve got the two-time world champion. He had just won the championship in 2005 and 2006. He’s got number one on his car and I am going to be number two because that’s how it goes.”
“And I remember sitting, testing, just studying and I have got to make sure that I somehow match this guy. I believe in myself. Somewhere in me, there’s the speed to keep up and beat this guy.”
“I remember the first day before the race, Ron(Dennis) said in his office, ‘you’ve got to expect and don’t be surprised if you are half a second behind Fernando in the first race.’
“You don’t know what that did to me inside. It just boiled me because he[Ron] obviously – not undervalued me because he obviously gave me the role. But he was not expecting me to be able to answer to his special new guy.”
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Rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Alonso remains
Hamilton and Alonso were involved in a battle at the recent Monaco GP. Watching that F1 expert Martin Brundle felt that there is still a bit of feud between the two.
“[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 Sports 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 team-mates back in 2007.
“Fernando then bizarrely took off for a while and did the third fastest lap of the race to retain 7th place.”
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