F1 rivals vow to keep it clean

McLaren team-mates Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso insisted there would be no repeat of their first-corner incident at Spa when the pair go head to head at the Japanese Grand Prix tomorrow.

Championship leader Hamilton snatched pole position away from closest rival Alonso in the dying moments of today’s qualifying session at Fuji Speedway to gain the upper hand as their battle for the driver’s title looks set to go down to the wire.

The 22-year-old leads the Spaniard by just two points with three races to go but was incensed by what he saw as Alonso’s deliberate attempt to force him off the track as they ran down to the first corner at the Belgian Grand Prix two weeks ago.

The increasingly tense rivalry between the pair has dominated the build-up to what could prove to be a crucial weekend in the championship picture.

But both drivers reiterated that while the competition will remain intense, it will not be to the detriment of either themselves or the team when they line up alongside each other on the grid tomorrow.

“We’re going to race,” Hamilton said.

“As Fernando said, we’re not idiots. We’re going to go into the first corner, we want to finish the race and score points, so we will obviously attack each other in a fair manner.”

Alonso backed up his team-mate’s assertion.

“We will both finish the race, no worries,” he added.

“Obviously I will do what I can to take the lead but also be sensible as it’s not in anybody’s interest not to finish the race.”

Alonso had led throughout only for the young rookie to pull out a stunning final lap and snatch pole position away from the double world champion, punching the air in unbridled joy having already seen the result on a giant TV screen on the paddock wall as he crossed the line.

It was all the more impressive given he started his final lap in fourth place and under immense pressure given one mistake would have handed Alonso a decisive advantage, even having the presence of mind to not let a slow moving Ferrari distract him as he exited the final corner.

“Obviously when I crossed the line I realised that this was the last chance I was probably going to have,” Hamilton said.

“I improved on a couple of corners where I’d made mistakes previously.

“I lost a little bit of time on the exit of the last corner because I didn’t know what the Ferrari was going to do but it didn’t really get in my way and I managed to come across the line ahead.

“I could see it on the TV in the paddock when I came across the line so before my team even told me I knew. So, as you can imagine, I was punching the air.”

Despite seeing his hopes of starting the 67-lap race on pole disappear, Alonso was nevertheless satisfied with his effort.

“Of course pole position would have been better but we are on the front row, which is very important and a good basis for the race,” he said.

“I’m very happy with the performance of the car.”

Fellow championship contender Kimi Raikkonen will start from third, the Finn lies 13 points behind Hamilton, and Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa in fourth.

With just four tenths of a second separating the top four in the final qualifying session, Alonso believes McLaren are in for a hard afternoon with both teams having been in the ascendancy at different points over the weekend.

“We saw tight timed laps yesterday, it was very close between the two teams, and in qualifying it was extremely close,” he added.

“It was quite an exciting qualifying due to the problems with the fog this morning. The first lap in wet conditions was in Q1, so it was quite exciting.”

A gearbox problem hampered Raikkonen’s challenge but he was nevertheless upbeat about his chances tomorrow.

“We had a sensor problem so it cost us time,” he said,

“There was nothing we could do but we can fix it for tomorrow.

“It helps when you have it working but the car felt pretty good in the last session, I was pretty happy.

“I only got one lap really and that was good enough for third place. I think we are pretty close to Friday morning and the times between the teams are very close so maybe it would have made a difference.

“But anyhow, we are in a good position for tomorrow.”