BRITISH GP SPECIAL
Sixteen years after they first got stuck into each other, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton once again find themselves contesting the same piece of track somewhere close to the front of Formula 1. For British fans, the prospect of witnessing the two drivers in such close proximity at Hamilton’s home race next month, so often the scene of on-track drama, marks a rivalry that has come full circle.
The routes they have travelled to return to this point could hardly be more different. Hamilton’s a somewhat unexpected fall from a place of grace that made him the most successful driver in F1 history through eight glorious years with Mercedes; Alonso’s a surprise leap back to competitiveness after a decade of purgatory in the midfield, or worse.
The stories of these two giants of motor sport were initially intertwined in a bigbang maelstrom of competitiveness, controversy and rancour, then ran in parallel for a time, before drifting apart. Now, the shifting sands of competitive forces, of team progression and regression, have brought them back together.
Before Mercedes’ monopolisation of F1, Alonso had 32 victories and two championships, Hamilton 22 and one. Hamilton’s career statistics look very different now; Alonso’s just the same. But as well as being outstanding, epochdefining racing drivers, they remain also the most charismatic, most interesting and most quotable stars in F1.
As Hamilton’s worldwide fame grew, through success on track and his emergence as a campaigner for social and racial justice off it, so through his years of famine Alonso never lost his box-office appeal. Whether that was through forcing his McLaren to results it didn’t deserve, or entertaining antics such as taking to a lawn chair in Brazil when his car had ground to a halt for the umpteenth time.
All the while, they have been eyeing each other with guarded respect, each recognising in the other perhaps the only person fitting to be considered a true rival, at least until the advent of a young Dutchman called Max Verstappen. In turn, they
