S10 E5: Hungary '07 - Alonso-Hamilton rivalry explodes

When you think of McLaren's controversial 2007 F1 season, two things immediately spring to mind. The Fernando Alonzo Lewis Hamilton rivalry and the spy scandal that resulted in the team being thrown out of that year's Constructors Championship, and in the middle of the year at the Hungarory, those two storylines overlapped in a way that would have huge repercussions for the main players involved. The battle between the drivers exploded in full view of the watching world during qualifying, and one of the many consequences from it was a revelation from Alonzo that doomed McLaren in the spy gate case not long after he had initially been let off by the FIA. This is normally the part of a bringback V10s intro where I say we're going to discuss all that and much more. But for Hungary 2007, it would be more accurate to say we're going to discuss all of that in a lot of detail, plus a couple of other things that we're going on in F1. So joining me, Glen Freeman, to get stuck into this story from F1's V8 era are Mark Hughes and Karun Chandak. Karun, welcome back for another appearance in Series 10. You were pretty quick to volunteer for this one, so when you think of the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix, what's the first thing that comes to mind? It's got to be the pit lane incident in qualifying. I mean, Alonzo, part there and not going out, followed quickly by Ron Dennis stomping into the park for me afterwards and awkwardly trying to talk to Fernando while he completely ignored him. So yeah, that's got to be the overloading memory. Yeah, Dragon Fernando's trainer, wasn't it? Dragon him off the pit wall as well, and to come with him. So yeah, unbelievable, unbelievable moment that we'll talk about in a lot of depth. Mark, you were in Hungary trying to keep track of all this. And, you know, I remember from I was on the Autosport.com news desk at the time. It was one of those weekends where just every time the guys from the paddock checked in, there'd been massive new developments in all this. Is there one thing that stands out from being on the ground that weekend? Yes, it was the extraordinary team press conference afterwards, which they gave after every qualifying session. And we sort of have expected they would cancel, but they didn't. And it began with only Ron Dennis and Fernando Alonzo and Ron explaining that Lewis was still too angry to join. And then Ron then halfway through it, Ron got called to the stewards because, you know, the stewards were investigating the incident. So that left just a lot. So they were in front of us all. And then a couple of minutes later, Lewis appeared, I just sat down and said, oh, sorry, I was just watching the GP tourists. I lost track of time. And so everything one of them said, you know, the other one, the other one would be asked, is that what happened? And they just said, no, it's a completely contradicting each other all three of them actually. Amazing. I saw a thing at the time. I think it said Alonzo was like eating fruit or something during the press conference. Yeah. Every time Ron spoke, Fernando very ostentatiously took a big bite out of his pair. Oh, superb, superb. Just shown complete disrespect. Yeah, exactly. No audience memories for this one, but if you're in the race members club, this episode is the first to feature a new bonus segment at the end where we're answering questions from people in our champions tier on Patreon. All members get to hear the extra section. But if you want to ask one of the questions, or just share a comment with us on the subject we're covering, then check out the link in the description to head to our Patreon page and take a look at the champions tier. And as we approach the halfway stage of series 10, make sure you start getting your questions in for the end of the series. When you can ask us anything about the V10 era, send them in to bring about V10s at thehifromrace.com. And if you're in our members club or on Patreon, remember we'll be giving you exclusive postseason Q&A shows where you can get your questions answered. So we'll contact you about that separately. But now let's pile straight in with some spygate, shall we? Much as I hate people putting the word gate on the end of controversies, but I think this one's got a life of its own these days, we're obviously not going to do a full rundown of spygate here. That would have to be a series all of its own, but we can touch on a few of the key moments that overlapped with the Hungary weekend. And before everyone got to Hungary, there was surprise, as the FIA World Motorsport Council let McLaren off the hook, despite its designer, Mike Cofflin, being found guilty of having 780 pages of information about Ferrari's car. This was the dossier of information Cofflin had acquired from disgruntled senior Ferrari mechanic Nigel Stepney, and they've been busted when Cofflin's wife took it to a copy shop to get it put on to CDs so they could destroy the hard copy. The World Council said there was insufficient evidence that this was used in such a way to interfere properly with the world championship, so there was no penalty. Naturally, McLaren called the outcome very balanced and fair, while Ferrari and seemingly the whole of Italy were absolutely raging. Ferrari team boss John Todd said there was no logic to the outcome, saying if someone is guilty they must have a punishment. He said it was like playing poker against a rival who knows your cards, and the FIA's decision was shameful. Max Mosley explained the outcome in more detail in his book where he said we were all convinced that McLaren's guilt, but we had no hard evidence that what they told us was untrue, still less that McLaren had actually made use of Ferrari's IP. It seemed obvious, but this was not the same as proof. If we were to convict without concrete evidence, McLaren would go to a civil court and almost certainly win. Very reluctantly, we had no option but to acquit. Mark, at the time, were you surprised when you heard that McLaren were getting let off? Yes, I was. There's a very sort of hostile relationship between Max and Ron, which went back for many years and several reasons, and it seemed that Ron was finally in the sights in the crosshairs for Max and that Max would show no mercy. Yeah, we also followed the logic of the burden of proof, and we also quite believed that it would have gone to a civil court had been found guilty with insufficient proof. Yeah, Karin, can you understand Mosley's outline there that effectively, the FIA's hands were tied, even if deep down, they probably knew that McLaren were guilty? Yeah, I guess so. I guess, you know, to mark why it was sort of begrudgingly had to let them off the road, but as we're about to find out, that didn't last very long, did it? No, and Hungary played a massive role in that. Ferrari didn't want to let this one go after Todd ran to the Italian media. The team then released a first-person article from him of nearly a thousand words on their website where he talked about feeling bitter about what had happened. He pointed out that McLaren had used this leaked information to submit a clarification request with the FIA about a couple of things Ferrari were doing with their car, one of which uncovered a flaw state that was deemed illegal after the first race of the year in Australia. Todd said it was incomprehensible that possessing the information wasn't enough of an offense to warrant a penalty, and he said Ferrari would be taking legal action. Ferrari president Luca de Montezemelo told Ferrari fans to stay calm because this story doesn't end here, and the Italian Motorsport Federation got involved with its president writing a letter to Mosley, which called on him to send the matter to the FIA's international court of appeal, so Ferrari could have a full right of audience. Mosley accepted this, saying it was important for there to be public confidence in the outcome, and he stated that any team who wanted to make a submission would be invited to do so. McLaren called this decision disappointing and time-consuming, but said it expected the outcome to be the same as there was no new information or arguments to consider. McLaren also criticized Ferrari for leading a thoroughly misleading press campaign. Mark, I know it's so hard, not to answer these questions with too much benefit of hindsight, but before we knew for certain that this information had circulated inside McLaren, could you sympathise with Ferrari's reaction at this point? They're despair that a McLaren employee being caught with the information wasn't enough, yeah, totally. But at the same time, it was quite amusing here in Todd's explanation of his anger, which was essentially, of course, they've used it. They worked out an appeal based on our illegal flaw, and we had to get rid of our illegal flaw. So, yeah, it sort of just illustrates the point that the black and white rules are not the real rules. They're always grey areas, and this whole thing was one of them, and certainly if you look back to prior cases of espionage, of which there had been a few, the FIA chose not to get involved with them. The FIA just said it's a civil matter, but there was one with a Toyota and Ferrari, where some ex Ferrari people had taken information to Toyota, and the FIA's position was, well, it's up to you Toyota to take your own civil action, which they did. But you knew as soon as McLaren was the accused, there's no way that Max was going to just not get involved. So, yes, you could absolutely understand Ferrari's anger at the original verdict, but to paint one as white and the other one as the bad guy would be very misleading. Well, pause the spygate chat there, but there is more to come later, and if you do want a bit more spygate in your lives, I have good news, because I can reveal that the second season of our sister podcast and colossally that's history will feature a spygate episode. So, look out for that once season 10 of Bring Back V10s is over. Let's talk about something that was tangential to this, and involved Ross Braun, who was at this point on sabbatical from Ferrari and F1, but Braun felt the need to surface around this time, as media reports in Italy were suggesting he was going to be one of several people leaving Ferrari. Amusingly Ross decided the way he could get a denial out of this out there to the world was to call up auto sport, which resulted in someone giving him my number, so the story could go on your sport website. I can only assume no one else was working that day, maybe it was a Wednesday, so I was holding down the fort on my own. But Ross explained to me off the record, which I think is okay to share all these years later, that he thought the speculation about him leaving might be coming from Nigel Steppney, and he wanted to be distanced from it. On the record, he said he was in discussions with Ferrari to see if they could work together again in the future. He said Ferrari was in his blood, and they were the only team he had spoken to so far. However, in Ross's book he released with Adam Powell years later, he said that by this time, so August 2007, he'd already had his talks with Ferrari, where he made clear that the only position that would make sense for him to come back to would be Team Boss. But as Stefano Domenicale was being lined up for that role after Jean-Tot, Braun and Ferrari had decided to draw a line underneath it, and Honda F1 Boss Nick Fry had been trying to get Braun to join his team. Karune, just indulges for a second here, Ross Braun is Ferrari team principal in the late 2000s. How had that gone? Wow, would we have had the Braun GP? Yeah, first of all, that's the biggest question, isn't it? I don't think that would have been the case, because obviously he was the architect of that with Nick Fry. He was the one who convinced Honda to sacrifice 2008, basically 2007 as well, in order to focus their efforts on 2009. He would have been a very convincing person to listen to, because of his record at Ferrari, so I don't think they would have done that. Maybe Jensen Button would never have won a World Championship. Wow, don't tell Jensen that next time you're working with him. No, I won't. I couldn't tell my phone off. Another Ferrari legend was discussing his future with the team as well with Michael Schumacher, telling all sport that he didn't have a clearly defined role yet after retiring from racing at the end of 2006. Schumacher said there was no pressure to finalize anything, but he felt the benefit of his knowledge would be restricted by time, as the more time that passed since he'd been racing, the less used he could be. And he was also aware of not wanting to end up like so many other ex-drivers who he felt tried to comment on what is going on, but they are struggling because they are no longer deep in the business. We'll let that hang for a second. He said there were constant opportunities coming up at Ferrari, but he hadn't yet found a role that it excited him. Mark, Michael attended a lot of races in 2007. Did you get the impression he felt like a bit of a spare part at this point? Probably, yes. I mean, it wasn't central to any key decisions and I think had Kimmy been more open to sort of forming a bond with him. There might have been a role there, but, you know, Kimmy's Kimmy. Kimmy's very self-contained, and he didn't need any advice from anyone. So I recall when he went in that opening race in Melbourne, somebody, Michael wasn't that one. Somebody handed the phone and said it's Michael, it's Michael, he wants to congratulate you and Kimmy held the phone for about five seconds, shrugged his shoulders and give it back. That was just not. That wasn't. So Michael, I think, was so intimately involved with the team as it had been with him at its centre that it was a difficult thing for him to no longer be at its centre. So yeah, I don't think anyone really was very comfortable with the role that Michael had there, including Michael himself. Yeah, my enduring image of him that year is just kind of sat there in a team t-shirt and jeans of a headset on looking bored on the pit wall most of the time. Let's move around a paddock a bit before we end up firmly back in McLaren territory later on, because there was change coming at Torosso where Scott Speed was sidelined to make way for Sebastian Vettel who was released from his test and reserve driver contract at BMW to take up a race seat with Red Bull's second team. BMW and Red Bull had shared oversight of Vettel's junior career up to this point, but BMW felt it would go against its principles to place obstacles in Vettel's way when a race seat was available elsewhere, especially as F1 was now cutting back on testing. So in the words of BMW Motorsport Boss Marrow Tyson, Vettel barely gets a chance to drive for us. Vettel had made his F1 debut with BMW at the US Grand Prix, funding him for Robert Cabitzer, and picked up a point that day, and Tyson said BMW's view of the partnership it had with Red Bull to develop Vettel was to use the best opportunities that present themselves to a young driver at any given time. Torosso quickly confirmed that Vettel would race for the team in 2008 as well, with Team Boskel Berger saying there was no pressure on Vettel to make an immediate impression as this was a long-term project aimed at developing him as a driver. Corrine, do you think BMW ever regretted getting beaten to the punch in terms of being able to offer Vettel the full-time F1 drive? Maybe. I think certainly in 2008 when he was winning the Italian Grand Prix, they probably regretted that point, because what was clear to be honest, even when he got in the car towards the end of 2007, remember that was a Fuji race where he was brilliant, wasn't he, until he crashed into Weber, but there was clear science right away, he was going to be something special. But when we look back and I know we've done it in various episodes, I'm really looking at BMW's time, there were lots of odd decisions, really, wasn't it? In terms of giving up on the championship fight with Robert Cabitzer, when they were in that prime position, the curves decision because there was a marketing lead decision for '09, really, you know, Cabitzer Vettel lineup would have been brilliant actually for that team, and in hindsight, that is what they should have done. But it did feel like there was a lot of corporate decision-making, rather than sort of, you know, gut feel, race analysis, making those decisions. Yeah, business decisions, rather than racing decisions, quite a good word, looking at it. As for Scott Speed, his F1 career had ended with an altercation in the garage at the Nürburgring with Torosso's other chief, Franz Toast. Speed accused Toast of grabbing him by the neck, which Toast denied. Toast said he grabbed speed by the shoulders he tried to walk away during their argument and added that he had apologised once he had calmed down. When he lost the drive, Speed said you couldn't pay me enough money to drive for burger and Toast again, and the boss said he was dropped because he wasn't performing, not because of the altercation in a Nürburgring garage. We'll talk you through this split in more detail when we do the crazy 2007 Nürburgring race one day. But we'll touch on it briefly here, as Speed talked very well about it in a 2023 appearance on the F1 beyond the grip podcast. He said Toast chased after him after Speed had told him to F off, and Speed said to be fair, I probably would have acted the same way. I obviously showed him zero respect. He also joked that I finally found a limit of Franz's patience. I finally broke him. And he said he took heart from seeing Vettel get in the car and qualified 20th first time out in Hungary because Vettel was the golden child and Speed said that proved to him that he could pack his bag and go wherever he wanted because now I know that I am elite. And I think it's also only fair to mention that Speed said that even to this day he is a supporter of the Red Bull brand saying regardless of if that situation F1 didn't work out, I still owe my whole racing career to Red Bull. Mark was Speed just a victim of Vettel becoming this irresistible force at this point, a bit like Max Verstappen did years later in the world of Red Bull. Or is it fair to say Scott had his chance by this point. He had a season of half in F1 and had he just not done enough with it. You can only dictate your own destiny by being irreplaceable and he hadn't proved to be irreplaceable. He'd not disgraced himself but he'd not done anything that demanded that he stay. And there's always some quick new kid coming along and Seb was on the book so it was obviously a threat and yeah that's how it panned out. So I don't think he was hard done by. I think he did have a fair crack in the whip. I don't think he disgraced himself but he didn't mark himself out either. We mentioned earlier that BMW didn't have Vettel anymore then but they still had big ambitions for 2008. We'd room BMW's second season here owning Salva and after finishing fifth in the championship in its first year it had moved into a very comfortable third sitting in a kind of no man's land between Ferrari and McLaren at the front and everybody else behind. BMW boss Tyson said that he needed to take a conceptual leap for 2008. He felt that they were proving in 2007 that they could keep up with the development rate in McLaren and Ferrari which he called quite an achievement for a team which is still growing. He said BMW needed to make a big step with its car for the following year to get it up to the level of the leading teams and he said BMW already had more than 50% of its resources directed towards the 2008 car. He said BMW had all the keys in our hands to get to the top and the team was progressing within our time frame and we are ready to do the next step. Mark how impressive was BMW's progress from 2006 and 2007 after taking over Salva which let's face it was a you know authority baked in midfield team. Yeah there were definitely signs there that the investment and the ambition was moving the team forward. There were as Corinne touched upon before there were some odd decisions but overall the input has seemed to be going you know taken them the right way and we were to see more evidence of that the following year of course in 2008. There was a lot of promise there certainly it was a more harmonious combination I think with Salva than BMW had with Williams and so I think yeah the expectation was they would continue to progress and press on. Talking to manufacturer teams then with big ambitions or should that be manufacturer teams who quit F1 in the late 2000s. Jensen Button had some fighting talk for people who were writing off Honda during its dismal earth car spell. One year on from taking his first win at the Hungar ring, Button returned with just one point to his name in 2007 and that was Honda's only point of the season so far. Yet Jensen remained convinced at the Brackley based team we now know as Mercedes would get it right at some point in the future. He said on 99% sure that we will be challenging for the championship in the future it's a top team and we can work through this. This year has been tough but you've got to be positive for the future otherwise we might as well pack up and go home. He said that having a race win to his name made the struggles easier to deal with although ultimately he wasn't in F1 just to win a race what he really wanted was to win a championship. Now Corrine as you mentioned earlier in the Ross Brawn question two years later Jensen would be winning the championship with this team as Brawn GP so I guess he was right but wasn't easy to believe him back in 2007 when he was talking of Honda become in a title challenger. Not at that stage of the season you know but if you it's so funny isn't it how perceptions change quickly in F1 2004 they were the challengers to Ferrari they were the best challengers to Ferrari they sort of lost the way a little bit in 05 and 06 as it was you know Renault who leapfrogged in a big way ahead of them as well as McLaren particularly in 05 but you know they completely lost the plot it seems in 07 you know they they were absolutely nowhere with that car I guess in Jensen's case he still had to believe that the people and the ingredients that were there for that success in 2004 were still around but I just don't think that the Honda V8 was particularly strong I think that the V10 engine in in 04 and and before that was was still there or thereabouts but when we went to the V8s for 2006 7a it the Honda never quite looked like it had the same same level of performance that it needed to to make them competitive and then obviously the chassis side is a is a different conversation as well yeah and this is obviously as we mentioned before Ross Braun came in and kind of wrote off wrote off 2008 and all that so you couldn't even cling to that yet it was just this car has got no sponsored they painted planet earth on the side and it's really slow the yeah the best description I ever saw of that car I think I might be nicking this from edge straw was it was draggy on the streets and had no downforce in the corners which is always a clear sign that you've got it wrong let's take a deep breath though because we're getting into the main reason we're all here and that's what went on at McLaren during qualifying mark can correct me if I get any of this wrong or miss out any key details but essentially things all started kicking off when Hamilton got himself down to the end of the pits at the head of the queue to start Q3 on Saturday crucially this put him in front of teammate Fernando Alonzo who was meant to be at the front according to McLaren's plan of alternating who left the pits first on each weekend for the woeful fuel burn phase at the start of Q3 before the session started Hamilton was told over the radio by his engineer that he would have to let Alonzo through once they left the pits but Halton shot off when the light went green at the end of the pits with Alonzo raging over the radio behind him shouting things like what's he doing and this is not the plan can somebody tell him somebody was telling Halton and when it became clear he was ignoring his engineer Ron Dennis got involved but Halton ignored him too Hamilton explained in his 2007 autobiography my story that he was worried about letting Alonzo pass because Riker and Farah he was right behind them and Lewis didn't want to risk falling behind Kimmy as well and compromising his track position Hamilton said in the book I was thinking where is he I'm not slowing down if he can't keep up I could sense that Ron was unhappy but I was like well Fernando's miles behind so I went for it Mark looking at the decisions Hamilton made here in the first part of Q3 was there any acceptable excuse for what he did to trigger all of this no no no this was pure ambition this was pure you know there there was a fight for supremacy within the team and there was a fight for the world championship and Alonzo was constantly demanding that Dennis live up to his promise of making him the the world champion designate the lead driver and Lewis was adamant that was unacceptable and that wasn't going to happen and there was this constant it hadn't been controlled it was not resolved and so Hamilton devised his own plan of how to do it and he was actually fueled for a longer first stint than Alonzo but the plan with the the guy at the front obviously he would he would go faster than the guy who went out second and that was that was the the idea and the the fuel burn laps you would be credited with how many laps you've done with a set number of kilos per lap to be replenished at the end of qualifying so that you'd you'd get erased in so what Lewis had effectively done by getting down to the pit lane first against the plan was to have his cake and eat it he was able to run faster than Alonzo and thereby be lighter when it came time to qualify but by the time he got his fuel credits back he would still be fuel longer to the first stint so he would potentially be on pole and have a better race strategy and in addition to that he could make the super soft tire work which was a faster tire if he could make a work and Alonzo couldn't Alonzo was going to have to qualify in the soft so he was stacking the odds absolutely in his favour and it was no that was purely Lewis deciding to do that there wasn't there was no team involved no other team personnel involved in that decision possibly his engineer in terms of let's get the down to the pit lane first into the pit lane and it was always the two McLaren's at the first and second at the end of the pit lane because at the time that they were the only cars that which could sit there idling without overheating because they had like a cylinder cut out quite sophisticated thing at the time so they could just sit there on takeover whereas the others couldn't so they were always first and second anyway and yeah so Alonzo took off so Hamilton took off like a scolded cat and you know you can make justifications for it afterwards of it I was worried about Kimmy but such a baloney and you know Alonzo realized what the game was pretty quickly and yeah it all kicked off from there so yeah yeah he took his revenge yeah so against that backdrop of tension that was already there at mark outlines Alonzo had to be quickly assured over the radio that Hamilton was acting alone and as Mark says Fernando decided right I'm going to take matters into my own hands then Alonzo backed off out on track slowing to the extent that he would end up pitting to take on his final set of tyres just in front of Hamilton that didn't appear to be a huge drama McLaren had the timings worked out they told Hamilton to back off on his in-lapse so he didn't have to queue for long and they planned to hold Alonzo for 20 seconds after his tyre change to release him at the perfect time to get one final lap before the checkered flag with just enough time for Hamilton to do the same behind him but when Alonzo's countdown ended and the lollipop went up he didn't move he bore himself time by deciding to question the set of tyres he'd been given and after sitting there for another 10 seconds he drove away from the pit box crucially giving himself just enough time to get around for one final lap and guaranteeing that Hamilton wouldn't be able to make it for his own lap Hamilton was very vocal over the radio after all of this and he initially thought it was the team punishing him for not letting Alonzo through at the start of Q3 rather than Alonzo taking revenge himself Hamilton's confusion wasn't helped initially by a radio message from Ron Dennis saying that's what happens when you don't do as you're told Karin looking at what Alonzo did here could he be forgiven for deciding to take retribution here and do we actually have to give him some credit in a way to be so calculating to work all of this out on the fly during a qualifying session this is the most impressive part of this whole saga how did he calculate that to perfection I you know what in advance of the podcast I watched the video back of this pit stop it's all over YouTube there's multiple clips of it and he's looking across the pit wall and there's these you know all of these speculation that it was his trainer who was sort of looking at the time and judging and telling him where to go and all the stuff but even then right from the cockpit to calculate the time from their pit box to the end of the pit lane under speed limit the time of the out lap judge that he was going to get through with I think it was two or three seconds to spare and then Lewis missing it by two seconds I mean that is that is peak this dick dastardly type tricks is it like it's amazing he's not got a clock on his dashboard is it so I still it's a question now I don't know in 30 years time when this you know Fernando is prepared to tell the truth of this whole weekend and the story that is the question I want to ask him how did he calculate that out lap and that time to perfection so yeah you have to go and credit for that because I don't know how he did it but was it justified I don't think so you know I think that ultimately you're there to be your part of the team right and they would have both had ultimately with the way the rules were at stage the last lap was always going to be the quickest you know when you burn off the fuel the last lap was always quickest so it didn't really matter what happened earlier on they would have both got the last lap and they would have both had the opportunity to take over position there before we move on then Mark any idea how Fernando worked this out did you ever find that out no not a clue I mean I don't I don't buy that it was you was being counted down by the train there's no evidence of that I agree I don't know but you want to know do you want to know yeah yeah don't we all let's just derail his next astamart in media session don't care about your latest car can you just tell us this yeah right as the cars came back into Park Fermat all eyes were on Dennis on the McLaren pitwall he was seen slamming his headset down which at the time was thought to be in reaction to what a Lonzo did but it turned out this was because of a heated exchange he'd been having with Hamilton on the radio Ron then grabbed a Lonzo's physio we've mentioned a few times he was also manning his pitboard I love this bit he with a TV camera right in her faces he tells him to take his helmet off when the guy's not wearing one I think he meant headset this prompted theories as we just mentioned that a Lonzo's trainer was in on the plan although Ron said he just wanted some help in case the drivers needed calming down when they got out of their cars McLaren went into crisis management mode that evening they held their traditional Saturday afternoon media meetup which as Mark said Lewis arrived late saying he lost track of time because he was watching the GP2 race but Ron had earlier said Lewis was more uncomfortable with the situation than Fernando and if he feels too hot to talk about it then that's the way it is Ron gave a long explanation of what happened talking through how McLaren's cars were out of position for the whole session from the moment they didn't stop a swap after leaving the pit lane and he didn't throw a Lonzo under the bus for pausing after the Lollipop went up with Ron saying the Lollipop moved out of sequence and a Lonzo was under the control of his engineer Ron then turned to a Lonzo to ask have I explained it accurately and a Lonzo nodded Ron also said it's extremely difficult to deal with two such competitive drivers we make no secret of it they both want to win and we are trying our very hardest to balance those pressures today we were part of a process where it didn't work and the end result is more pressure on the team so Mark as you mentioned at the start you saw of this playing out in person we'll come back to the drivers in a moment but what did you make of how Ron was trying to firefight this? I you got the sense that he was trying to be truthful but without giving the whole truth away because to do so would have thrown one or both of the drivers under the bus and he was desperately trying to keep the whole thing together and you were also aware that it was a very hazardous line for Ron to be treading because of the whole credibility for speaking the truth was going to be central to the FIA inquiry and if he was standing in front of us explaining something that was obviously given an obviously untrue explanation for a different thing then obviously you know they it would put into question and any testimony he gave to the to the spygate matter. So what did the drivers say on Saturday evening then Alonzo stuck closely to his story of saying he simply followed the team's instructions on when to leave the pit he said he knew it looked bad and he was sorry for Hamilton but I leave the pits when I'm told to he said it was difficult for McLaren to manage his session because he was not in the perfect place and on accusations that he'd calculated how to delay Hamilton almost to the second he said that would be impossible to do from the car. He eventually lost his patience with constantly being asked the same questions about it and he accused the media of trying to create disagreement because that is what you want he said Ron's version of events was quite honest. Hamilton questioned some parts of Alonzo's story saying if you're on your own and not impeding your teammate then perhaps you wait a couple of seconds not half a minute and he said Alonzo being held for so long was not what we do although Lewis quickly added we are not disagreeing I just told you my side he's telling you his side I'm not disagreeing with him that's his opinion tiresome more knocks why don't you Lewis um he said he would need to ask for Claren what went on because it definitely needs a good explanation he was asked about not letting Alonzo through at the start of q3 and he mentioned his concern at losing track position to Ryken and he said he didn't think it was a huge problem and that Alonzo could have got the right number of fuel burn laps in if he'd stayed with Hamilton but Lewis felt Alonzo backed off quite a bit and lost a lot of time Hamilton added in his 2007 book that after that media appearance he apologised to the team and to Dennis and said it wouldn't happen again. Karoon how do you think the drivers handled this in their public appearance on the Saturday evening? As you'd expect I think you know they both they're both very good at you know playing games they're very good especially at that time right they Lewis was fresh to the paddock um and trying to establish himself as um you know as as a superstar that he goes on to be but he he was fresh to the paddock so he's still trying to play the game of I'm new to f1 I'm grateful to my claren I'm the underdog I'm the you know I'm the new kid I'm here to learn from Fernando etc etc while secretly thinking I'm equal number one I'm going for the championship and you know Fernando's the opposite right he's like I am the number one but publicly he's going oh I'm the team player you know etc etc and so there's so many games that they were playing throughout that year which really started in Monte Carlo wasn't it it started a few races ago where where the team orders were called and Lewis was really not happy about sitting sitting behind and I'll never forget sitting the press conference afterwards and while I was in the GP2 race but I remember watching the press conference and him saying I've got number two on my car that's my position you know you could literally see the Pinocchio nose growing as he said it out loud because he didn't believe his number two and rightly so so yeah I think this was just the latest chapter but the most explosive chapter in the political games that they were playing the next big development in this story came on Sunday morning when Alonzo was given a five-place grid penalty for unnecessarily impeding Halton and McLaren were barred from scoring any constructors point that weekend the Stuart said Alonzo's explanation for why he stayed in his pit box for so long was not accepted nor was McLaren's version of events and McLaren's actions were declared prejudicial to the interests of competition the stewards didn't believe that Alonzo needed to be held to get clear track as there were so few cars on track at that stage of Q3 although McLaren called this observation irrelevant as it was about working out where everyone would be when starting their final timed laps Alonzo was asked why he waited until after his 22nd countdown to query the tyres he was on and he said he couldn't do it while the countdown was being given to him over the radio channel McLaren released a lengthy statement that finished with it saying it didn't feel the penalties were appropriate and it said astrenuous efforts to maintain the spirit of fair play and equality within the team have been misunderstood Alonzo called his penalty funny saying it's not related to any specific rules he said the stewards decision had determined the race result by pushing him down the order and he compared it to an unfair penalty kick being given in a football match saying you have to keep playing the game with a goal against you. Halton said in his book that Alonzo getting a penalty was Lewis's worst nightmare and that he went around a garage on Sunday morning to shake everyone's hand and all but two people accepted. Lewis told UK broadcaster ITV on Sunday that he was in trouble with my boss and that it felt weird but he didn't know if Ron was still angry with him and he said he didn't think Alonzo had a great excuse for what happened. Mark what did you think of the penalties here Alonzo getting his grip penalty and McLaren losing their points for the weekend? Yeah probably the Alonzo one I wasn't surprised about because once the stewards had involved you looking at was an impeding did he impede and equally did and so the McLaren one I thought was probably a bit harsh because it was triggered by their two drivers or although you could argue that the whole situation wasn't managed very well. I think the other part of this was that prior to the the stewards getting involved was Anthony Hamilton was making inquiries as to what the procedure was to make an appeal about being impeded when the impede was your own teammate and the the stewards said assured them don't don't get involved it's already being looked at so this was widely known as well so there was sort of a rumblings of a civil war going on really between the two camps but as for the penalty being handed out yeah I wasn't so surprised at that you could say that the the fuel burn thing which initiated it that's purely an internal team arrangement there's no regulatory requirement to who's first out and who does the fuel burn and who goes faster and who goes slower that it's nothing to do with the the stewards but once you start getting in the way of preventing someone from doing their lap then that is very much within their remit so yeah I wasn't that surprised. Right that's the mostly on the record stuff now let's get to the real juice. Alonzo dropped two bombshells on Ron Dennis on the Sunday morning of the race and we'll tackle them one at a time I'm not sure in which order he said these things but that doesn't really matter. The one we're going to start with is the one that I think is more well known and that's Alonzo's threat to reveal emails relating to the spy gate case to the FIA. The existence of these emails would blow apart McLaren's case that nobody else inside the team other than Mike Cofflin knew about the stolen Ferrari data. Understandably Ron Dennis wasn't about to be held to ransom and he contacted FIA president Max Mosley immediately to make him aware but it turned out Mosley was already aware these emails existed because Alonzo had already told his close friend of manager Flavio Breatori also Renaultine Boss let's not forget and Flavio had told Bernie Ecclestone who had of course told Max. Mosley's book seemed to suggest that he'd seen second-hand copies of these emails which he said were very compromising but the FIA wanted hard proof of them so Alonzo Hamilton and McLaren test driver Pedro Delarosa were offered a deal of not facing individual punishments for any involvement they had if they shared everything they knew of the case. Max wrote in his book this was the only way to pursue the case because at the time ordinary team employees and even the company bosses did not have FIA licenses so we had no direct authority over them and he didn't say who came forward with what exactly but he said the threat achieved its intention which was to get the compromising emails into the FIA's possession. Corinne there's so much going on here but I want to focus on Ron's reaction to Alonzo's threat. Once Alonzo had said he was going to share those emails did that leave Ron with no choice but to go to the FIA himself? Yeah I think so I think you know it's whether that he couldn't take the chance of finding out whether that was a bail threat or not right so and in the end I don't think Fernando I don't know Fernando would have gone through with it anyway I don't know it's again it's probably the second question I'd ask him after we find out how he could live the out loud but yeah in the end for Ron had no choice at that point and the one thing I've learned in Mark's been in the paddock long long and I have a one thing I've learned in 20 audios of being in that paddock is it leads like a Titanic there really are no no secrets so the reality is if Ron hadn't have gone through with it that day it would have come out in the next in the next few weeks and you know in the end the way it all played out with the the photocopies being made with a at a photocopying shop run by the only Ferrari fan it seems in all of all of sorry you know you're in the heart of McLaren land Ron walking and sorry and you know Mrs. Coffley went to a photocopying shop run by a Ferrari fan who reported it I mean you couldn't make this up yeah so and if you thought all of that was crazy enough wait for this one not only did Alonzo make that throat with the emails on Sunday morning but he also made an outrageous demand to McLaren for how it could write the wrong caused by Hamilton the day before according to the BBC's Andrew Benson in a feature that was part of a special Alonzo package back in 2018 when Fernando didn't retire let's remember Alonzo tried to demand that McLaren run Hamilton out of fuel during the race that afternoon in Hungary. Ron Dennis ordered Alonzo to stop talking after he said that and Ron called for fellow McLaren chief Martyn Wittmarsh they sent Alonzo and his manager away while they discussed it their conclusion was that they couldn't allow Alonzo to race if he was in the frame of mind if this was the frame of mind he was in mostly his advice to McLaren was to not park Alonzo and half an hour later Alonzo's manager came back to Dennis saying Fernando wanted to apologize that he lost his temper and he took back everything he had said so perhaps as Karin said maybe that applies to the spygate threat as well Mark to be honest I'm running out ways to frame questions around this stuff when you first heard this one I don't know if you'd heard it before Andrew reported it but what did you think of this? Oh it was um totally totally believable within the context of how that relationship had broken down and the the drama the flush points through the season up until that point and if you remember um I see the Nurburgring when Fernando had won and Ron came to congratulate him he just he just looks straight through and he didn't even acknowledge he was there and that that that relationship on Alonzo as far as Alonzo was concerned had broken down entirely as far as Alonzo concerned um he'd he'd uh Ron had not lived up to what he promised him uh when when he recruited him a year earlier a year and a half earlier which was that he would he would be the the team leader um whether Ron actually made that concrete promise we've no way of knowing uh but certainly Fernando believed that he had and that was his state of mind and so it was it was pretty much war as far as Fernando was concerned and uh he he does operate very well on Alonzo but I think um he went over the top in this case and it uh it damaged him it damaged him for the rest of his career his actions on that post-qualifying um actually I believe made his career less than it would have been less successful than it would have been and it damaged him a clarinet as well yeah you've got to remember that when you hear things like team X doesn't want Fernando Alonzo because they think he might be trouble it's it's stuff like this that's coming back to bite him it's an interesting point about um what Ron may have promised at the end of 2005 when he signed Fernando because at that point Hamilton had just won the F3URA Series title semi-chiron probably wasn't necessarily expecting to have Lewis in the car you know seven so after all this absolute nonsense on the morning of the race a grand prix did take place so let's quickly discuss that um Hamilton led from lights to flag with Kimmy Rikens Ferrari howling him all the way and finishing less than a second behind him more than 40 seconds back Nick Hydefeld's BMW claimed third just ahead of Alonzo who'd only been able to recover to fourth place after his grid penalty meant he started sixth Hamilton called it an emotional an eventful weekend that was a bit of a downer for the whole team and he said it would have been easy to lose focus in the race in his 2007 book he said it was not the kind of victory that puts a smile on everyone's face because too much had gone on before the race just a bit Lewis Alonzo called the weekend a lost opportunity because he felt he would have won from pole position and Rodden has said he felt so drained that he didn't have any emotion left by the end of the weekend Ron said he'd be taking a holiday before the next race in Turkey and McLaren's plan was to let the temperature drop within the team before dealing with what had gone on. Ron also joked about the idea that the experience was character building saying at his age I don't need my character building anymore Mark you obviously there to report on a race as you always do and analyse what went on did did a small matter of the Hungarian Grand Prix taking a place amongst all this controversy feel quite inconsequential at the time. I did a little bit yeah but um I thought it was quite remarkable that Lewis showed absolutely no no effects in the car from the build up to it yeah it's all very well said Alonzo saying yeah I would have won from pole yeah but you didn't get your pole by fair means so that's not really a valid point so yeah I think it was that that weekend the advantage toodon froed between them all season of course but that weekend Lewis had Fernando's number in terms of raw pace and if everything had just played out normally Lewis was always going to win that race and there are other races where Fernando was always going to win it but that weekend Lewis had had his number now two pretty inevitable things happened after this weekend I guess you could say three if you include McLaren being found guilty and spygate the first was that rumours very quickly emerged about Alonzo leaving McLaren at the end of the season. Ron Dennis called these rumours an inevitability but he didn't completely deny them he said McLaren would respect its side of the long term contracts it had with both drivers adding we hope the drivers will respect theirs because that's what a contract is about. He also said McLaren would continue to function as a team with specific values and if anybody does not want to be part of those values irrespective of where they sit in the organization ultimately they all have a choice. Karun reading between the lines of all of that and hearing what Mark's already told us was the Alonzo McLaren relationship already over by this point yes I think the reality is you know Ron Ron had been in an era of the sport where he'd had to deal with drivers who were bigger than the team in some ways you know think of the early 80s when louder went behind his back to John Hogan and demand that they get the you know the turbo tag-pull engine at a time of bana didn't want to do it you know you have to deal with a center-prost situation these were huge characters who would call Marlborough and call Honda directly and try and bypass it right I need survival that but he he'd gone from that era into an era where the team bosses started to become the bosses and and really you know then the drivers apart from Schumacher who was probably the last one who was maybe bigger than the team the rest of them were always in some ways more submissive superstar employees yeah certainly more submissive than the 80s and I think for Ron to be you know putting a position where his drivers were making threats was never a position he would want to be in and and therefore I think Fernando's position just became untenable the next inevitable thing that happened was McLaren trying to calm any stories about his drivers being at war we've already had had the word war used quite a few times in this episode the team released a statement from Hamilton which infatibly stated that while he and Alonzo were fiercely competitive and ambitious they were respectful of each other and crucially it added we are not drivers at war as has been widely reported Hamilton expressed his own regrets over mistakes he had made but he said it was disappointing that inflammatory and untrue material is published and then commented on as if it is factual Lewis said in his book that he and Alonzo cleared the air before the next race in Turkey although he also said that throughout 2007 up to that point Ron was always pushing me to help Fernando feel happy and welcome Lewis said I tried a lot but I was not really getting anywhere with him and then he said he eventually told Ron he was not going to go out in my way to make him happy Mark was what went on in 2007 was it an Alonzo versus Hamilton feud or an Alonzo versus McLaren feud was Alonzo versus Ron Dennis it was absolutely that it wasn't Alonzo versus Hamilton at any stage that they were you know the the focus of the other ones attention but no I mean I think the other dimension to this is Lewis Hamilton's relationship to Ron Dennis which you know was the the great for a protege this is the the guy Ron Dennis had backed since he was you know 13 years old and you just you know taken him all the way to to the F1 team and I think it comes a time when you know that paternal relationship is not appropriate for a driver that's fighting for the world championship especially when you his rival for the world championship is in the same team you know the drivers that there's always a delineation between the team's interests and the drivers in this sort of situation and you you can't be beholden to someone just because no that they've put you in this position you've got to now be your own in charge of your own destiny and I think that was the moment that that decision he took to to say right I'm gonna go down the end of the bit lane first and I'm just gonna make sure that I'm on pole and so I don't care what Ron's plan is for the team that was the moment he made that he made that break he he snipped the umbilical and I think that the other side of that it was a Lonso's suspicion of that relationship you know this is the guy that Ron has made is like looked after like his own son and brought him all the way up and how how can I be being treated fairly in this sort of environment this isn't what I was told you know when I agreed to come here so the set of circumstances were just just where it all came together with it couldn't have been scripted better the last thing we'll talk about here is to look at some comments Alonzo has made more recently when talking about his 2007 season with Hamilton on F1's beyond the grid podcast in 2021 he said both of them were not ready for the battle they had because Lewis was a rookie and Fernando was not performing at his best because he was not really integrated with the team Alonzo also said we were not well managed at that time in 2023 broadcaster DeZone made a documentary about Alonzo and he expanded on that final point he said that as the year went on it became clear there was friction and tension between the drivers but he felt the team didn't do a good enough job of controlling it and he pointed the finger at Dennis saying we had a boss who did not know how to control the situation this would not have happened with Flavio Breatori or with Lawrence Stroll there are certain characters in F1 who are respected and others whose drivers have control of the situation in McLaren in 2007 the drivers had too much control and nobody gave us a serious warning Kareen do you think that's fair I'm not sure Ron would agree with that but I do think you know we forget right at that stage Fernando was also still in his 20s you know this this was yes he was a double world champion but this was his first step outside of the Breatori stable into a different team Flavio and Ron couldn't be two more diametrically opposite characters in terms of their personalities and management styles and I think he went there with the expectation that he was going to be the clear number one and obviously that wasn't the case when Lewis arrived and scored those nine podiums in a row to start his season quite clearly you know I had lots of shades in it of the Mansell PK 1986 there's so many things that are similar which is they they argue as number one status yeah they fought over number one status it wasn't clear you know because in that case it was because Frank was obviously had the injury and was you know there was some some issues there but then they ended up both losing the championship right and and someone else snuck in right at the last race and that to me is what's happened in in all seven is if at the start of the year it was clear that look you've got equal status there is no number one you've got equal status Fernando I know you came here as very much happy and I know you think you're the number one but this is equal status here and maybe that maybe someone needed to have that clear conversation with him and then I'm not saying it would have changed his attitude but it would have just maybe clarified the positioning internally a bit more do you think in both of those cases probably the team in question so Williams and 86 McLaren in '07 do you think they just thought that the other guy in which by coincidence was the British guy both times do you think they just thought he's going to be half a step behind so we don't need to define it I think so I think so I think they certainly in in Lewis's case nobody could have expected a rookie to come into f1 and do what he did I think there was a few circumstances there right which which perhaps they didn't factor in one was I think it's less talked about is the change of tile you know Fernando had just gone from mastering and he was the master along with Kimmy of the Michelin Tire and how to really extract performance of the front Michelins that are gone they'd now gone to these Bridgestone control tiles which everyone was using which required a different style so not only a changed team but the feeling that you get in the cockpit in terms of using the front tire is so important for a driver in terms of the cues of really how to attack a corner and and you know maybe that knocked Fernando's advantage a little bit and Lewis coming into f1 brand new he had no previous reference so for him this was you know A he he's got unbelievable God-given talent that he was born with but he also didn't have to unlearn a style of driving and both of those factors met in a way that Lewis was straight way in equal for Fernando right off the bat yeah I think that's right and also don't forget then GP2 the control tire was a Bridgestone as well so it's probably quite a similar tire was it not us was it not a sleep mark yeah in06 yeah it was a sleep yeah but I mean I just mean in its general trait it's gonna feel more like a what he's used to than a Michelin okay everybody take a breath this was always going to be a monster of an episode we had so much ground to cover we could have easily gone on for another couple of hours to get into even more depth with all of this nonsense I know that some of you will now get in touch with me wishing that we had thanks to Mark and Corrine for helping us with our latest detour outside of the v10 era thank you to everyone in a race members club who voted on which race we should cover from 2007 so there's a new benefit for you as well I think we put up four races for them and it's fair to say this was the clear winner in that poll next time we're venturing even further away from v10 powered cars as bringback v10s makes its second trip across the pond to cover the 1995 in the 500 a race that means more to Jack Villeneuve than his epic 1997 f1 title showdown with Michael Schumacher the athletic