Lewis Hamilton’s Reluctant Welcome of Fernando Alonso in the Competitive Fray Hints at Sparks Reigniting: “Not Great for Us”

The last time Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso competed on the track, it wasn’t great for either of the drivers. While Hamilton had to retire after the collision in Spa-Francorchamps, Fernando Alonso finished the race two places behind his starting position in P5. However, with last year’s incident in the distant past now, the former McLaren duo is back to being competitive again. As seen during the qualification of the opening race weekend of the season in Bahrain, Alonso and Hamilton start Sunday’s race from P5 and P7 respectively, and this made the seven-time world champion happy, but with caution.

As per a report by BBC, Hamilton said, “I am genuinely happy for Aston. It’s amazing to see their progress, the steps that they’ve taken. I’m really happy for Fernando because he’s been here way longer than me and it’s good to have him back in the mix. Hopefully, we’ll get some good races.”

However, the Mercedes driver is also cautious about what it means to see Alonso in a competitive car. This, in fact, isn’t a great feeling for Hamilton and his team. On this Hamilton further said, “They have pretty much the whole back end of our car, they have half our car. So it’s definitely not great for us.”

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Admittedly, Aston Martin takes the engine, gearbox, and rear suspension from Mercedes since the British manufacturers don’t build their own. Aston Martin then builds their car aerodynamically. Hence, the Aston Martin is indeed half the Mercedes.

Fernando Alonso was cautious about making mistakes ahead of big race

In the incredible run at qualification, Fernando Alonso put his Aston Martin with the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes. Alonso, regarded as the biggest threat, starts Sunday’s race from P5 and is expected to take his shot at the podium and push ahead against the Ferrari duo. However, he needs to be cautious about it as well.

Talking about this, the Spanish driver said, “Now we start P5 and we fight with the Ferraris for the podium, and this is just incredible. Let’s keep on going, keep the feet on the ground, execute the race with no mistakes, and see where we are.”

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Alonso finished Q3 with an impressive lap time of 1:30.336, 0.628 seconds slower than pole-sitter Max Verstappen. He starts behind the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz and ahead of the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.