zeph wrote:I wanted to post this in the SillySeason thread, but that has been closed. So here, Ron Dennis revises his view on 2007:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117114Dennis added that he believes Hamilton was a key player in the problems at McLaren escalating in 2007, rather than Alonso being solely to blame.
"To go back to that period, you look at this young guy, understandably perceived by many people as the chosen one," he said.
"But [he was] also someone who had immaturity, and really, who struck the first blow?
"I would say Lewis had his role to play in starting this process which escalated."
Back then, I believe he said "We were fighting Alonso."
From http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2007/10/30/f ... vs-alonso/Ron Dennis in 2007 wrote:‘We were racing Alonso’
Chinese Grand Prix 2007, Shanghai International Circuit: It all looked to be going the British driver’s way when he took pole position at Shanghai. Alonso was fourth, two-thirds of a second slower, and when he returned to the pits he threw his helmet across the room, almost broke a door off its hinges, and insinuated that the team had fiddled with his tyre pressures.
An incredible error by McLaren and Hamilton left him floundering on destroyed tyres in the Chinese race. He failed to finish, and went into the last race four points ahead of Alonso and seven ahead of Raikkonen.
Following the blunder Dennis made a remark that sent Alonso’s fans (and Alonso himself) to new heights of suspicion. Speaking of Hamilton’s race Dennis said:
The problem was rain and [Hamilton's] tyres were in the worst condition. But we weren’t at all fazed about Kimi. We weren’t racing Kimi, we were basically racing Fernando.
Kimi winning and Lewis coming second was adequate. It just didn’t quite work out that way.
Was this testimony to Alonso’s belief that the entire McLaren team was working for Hamilton? Or was this an ill-worded grammatical slip in the heat of the moment, when Dennis failed to realise that the watching world didn’t know he was talking about Hamilton’s half of the team, rather than the whole team?
Whatever it means, it certainly falls a long way short of conclusive, hard proof, whatever the conspiracy theorists may say. What Alonso made of it is unclear. Before the final race he seemed to clear up the matter, saying:
I was surprised, but I think it is difficult to see what is true, what is just normal words that you say after the race and if you take in a different way you can make some problems. I don’t see anything strange, I was surprised but not really worried.
But after the championship had been decided he took a different slant:
What my team boss stated in China, saying that they weren’t racing against Raikkonen but against me, was a declaration of intent.
This is gonna be fun!
