Fernando Alonso aims dig at Lewis Hamilton and shares Mercedes theory

Fernando Alonso has insisted that Lewis Hamilton has been ‘lucky’ to win seven Drivers’ Championship titles over the course of his career, with six of those coming when Mercedes were considerably quicker than any other team on the grid. Alonso is no stranger to having a pop at Hamilton, who beat the Spaniard on points in his rookie season back in 2007 while driving alongside him at McLaren.

The pair’s working relationship spiralled into a bitter rivalry and there remains no love lost between Alonso and Hamilton, with the former having criticised his old team-mate on a number of occasions over the last few years. He has since aimed yet another jab at the Brit in advance of this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix by suggesting that Hamilton would only be a one-time champion if he had not been so ‘lucky’ to drive for Mercedes at the peak of their powers between 2014 and 2021.

“He’s been lucky, or lucky enough, to be in a dominant car for many years and when that happens…” Alonso told Marca. “[Michael] Schumacher won seven titles, Lewis won seven, [Max] Verstappen is on his way to his third, I won two. To be champion, you need the best car.”

Alonso went on to claim that many drivers would have shared Hamilton’s success if they had been in his position at Mercedes, with the 41-year-old insisting that Valtteri Bottas could have won as many as five Drivers’ Championship titles if his former team-mate had not been so fortunate.

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“It would have been a different story for us and for all the drivers,” added Alonso. “If he had any problems at Mercedes in those years, Bottas could have five titles. That’s how it works.”

Bottas worked alongside Hamilton for five seasons between 2017 and 2021 but failed to beat his Silver Arrows colleague to the end-of-season honours before leaving for Alfa Romeo at the start of last year. The Finn previously admitted that he struggled to come to terms with Hamilton’s brilliance during his time with Mercedes and even thought about quitting the sport altogether as a result of his frustrations.

“At the end of 2018, I almost stopped, it was so close,” Bottas told Motorsport Magazine in July of last year. “Just because of the fact that I couldn’t understand and take the fact that I couldn’t beat Lewis in those two years.

“I put so much pressure on myself. Towards the end of 2018, especially when I started to have the support role in the team, I really couldn’t take it, I really struggled. It was not fun. The only thing I was thinking when I joined the team was that now, this year, I’m going to win the championship.

“That was my attitude. I think I was quite hard on myself because it didn’t happen. And I was like, oh, OK, I’ll try next year even harder [but it] didn’t happen. It’s really not easy to accept the situation, that it’s not that easy to beat Lewis when he’s at his peak performance.”

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