We are looking back at some of Formula One’s greatest inter-team rivalries. This includes a driver currently in a titanic battle for the title with his current team mate and a driver who was expected to be in a similar situation, but it hasn’t turned out that way so far.
From the dawn of the new millennium Ferrari and Michael Schumacher had a very firm stranglehold on Formula One, bringing Formula One’s greatest team back to the very top and not letting go for five years, although both McLaren and Williams came close. For 2005, the regulations were changed in favour of the runners on Michelin tyres, and not those on the softer Bridgestone tyres. McLaren, Williams and the Renault team were on Michelin and Ferrari was on Bridgestone. A brilliant season-long battle emerged between McLaren and their star driver, Kimi Raikkonen and Renault with their young hotshot Fernando Alonso. Between those two teams and their other drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Giancarlo Fisichella respectively, they won all bar one of the races that year, that one race going to Michael Schumacher as the Michelin runners withdrew from the United States Grand Prix due to safety concerns. At the end of that year, Alonso was contacted by Ron Dennis of McLaren, and was signed up in secret for the 2007 season.
Both McLaren and Renault retained their drivers for 2006, with Ferrari losing Rubens Barrichello, who was famous for being Schumacher’s bridesmaid, in favour of the impressive Felipe Massa. Alonso took the title again, this time holding off everything Schumacher could throw at him. At Monza, Schumacher announced after winning that he would retire (what would be for the first time), and shortly afterwards, Raikkonen was announced as his replacement. At this point, Montoya had left Formula One for NASCAR so both McLaren and Renault was looking for a new driver for 2007. Meanwhile, in the GP2 series, which was designed as Formula One’s feeder series saw another brilliant battle, between McLaren young driver Lewis Hamilton and Nelson Piquet Jr, son of Triple Champion Nelson Piquet, Hamilton came out on top and won the series in his first attempt.
Renault went with the GP2 runner up in 2005 and test driver Heikki Kovalainen and McLaren had many options with test drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Gary Paffett but chose to go with Hamilton to partner Alonso. Many were surprised by McLaren’s decision to put a youngster straight into a top team at just 22 years old, alongside the only World Champion on the grid. So many expected Alonso to walk to the title or at the very least fight the Ferraris of Massa and Raikkonen with Hamilton playing a supporting role, but it wasn’t meant to be.
The Ferrari and McLaren battle of 2007 was pretty evenly matched as the year went on, perhaps Ferrari had a bit more speed but they had a few more reliability issues which balanced out that speed advantage. Australia came and Raikkonen took pole on his first time out for Ferrari while Massa hit engine trouble, alongside Alonso, with Hamilton a brilliant fourth on his debut. But it was Hamilton’s start to the race which shook the paddock. Not only did he get past Nick Heidfeld’s BMW going into turn 1 but later on in the first lap he went and passed Alonso too. Alonso got past in the pit stops, but Hamilton finished a fantastic third in his very first Formula One race, as Raikkonen won.
Alonso would win in the next race, the Malaysian Grand Prix. Hamilton pulled another brilliant move, this time on Raikkonen, to take another podium. The Finn would not win a race again for a while, as Massa won in Bahrain and Spain, but Hamilton continued to get the podiums and would lead the World Championship after the Spanish round.
The first signs of strain in the McLaren camp came at Monaco, where the two drivers were running 1-2 by quite a margin and were told to hold position. Hamilton was not impressed by this and felt as if he was able to catch and pass Alonso, who went on to win the race. Canada was the next race and Hamilton took his first pole in just seven attempts, and took a brilliant win in a race which was marred by the horrible crash of Robert Kubica, which had several safety car periods, but it was also a race where Alonso made a long list of mistakes, especially at the tricky first corner. He was memorably overtaken by Takuma Sato in the Super Aguri, one of the worst cars on the grid. Hamilton won from pole again in the United States, as the two McLarens fought very hard but very fair for most of the race. Raikkonen would return to winning ways, taking brilliant wins at both France and Great Britain, to end his streak of six races without a win and four without a trip to the rostrum.
At this point in the season, Hamilton was 12 points ahead of Alonso, 18 ahead of Raikkonen and 19 ahead of Massa, so any of the four could take it. Hamilton also had scored 9 podium finishes in a row up to this point. This all changed at the Nurburgring where in the heavy rain, Hamilton skidded off and ended up a lap down and finished just out of the points, while Raikkonen retired, and Alonso and Massa bumped each other’s cars and fought for the win, with Alonso on top. Next came Hungary, where Hamilton disobeyed a pre-session agreement to let Alonso through in Q3, so the Spaniard retaliated by blocking the Brit in the pits. Alonso took pole only for it to be taken away. Hamilton won the race from the front, but McLaren were not awarded any Constructors’ Championship points or a trophy for the team. The team were set to appeal that decision until it emerged that McLaren’s chief designer Mike Coughlan and Ferrari’s Nigel Stephney had been exchanging information, and Alonso and de la Rosa knew about this Ferrari information. This later became known as ‘Spygate’ and McLaren were excluded from the Constructors’ Championship and fined 100 million dollars. This dented Alonso’s now bad relationship with McLaren further as he won in Italy, while Massa won in Turkey before Raikkonen took his traditional win in Spa. Therefore, with three rounds to go, the top four were separated by 20 points and both Ferrari and McLaren’s drivers still had a chance at the title.
The Japanese Grand Prix at the redesigned Fuji circuit was held in terrible weather. While Ferrari made terrible strategic calls and Alonso crashed out, Hamilton won ahead of Kovalainen and Raikkonen with Massa’s sixth place putting him out of the running. Raikkonen was now 17 points behind with just 20 available. The Chinese Grand Prix was also held in wet conditions, and a terrible strategic error by McLaren saw Hamilton skid off on a damp track on much worn wet tyres, giving him his first retirement. According to Dennis, they were simply racing Alonso. Raikkonen won the race to keep his hopes alive ahead of Alonso and Massa.
The last race of the season was held in Brazil. While Ferrari made the race more of a display, by using team orders to let Raikkonen win the race, Hamilton suffered a poor start and a gearbox glitch, putting him last. He fought well to finish seventh but it wasn’t enough, and Alonso’s third place meant that Raikkonen had 110 points, ahead of Hamilton on 109 and Alonso also on 109. The driver who had left McLaren to join arch rivals Ferrari brilliantly beat both drivers to the title while the two drivers squabbled. Alonso and McLaren tore up the contract between the two shortly after and he re-joined Renault. Hamilton would win the title the next year before leaving the team in 2012. Alonso has stated since on more than one occasion that he has no problem with Hamilton at all, but he does with McLaren and with Ron Dennis.
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