Hamilton livid over Alonso manoeuvre

THE gloves have well and truly came off in Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso’s world championship scrap.

Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa clinched a Ferrari one-two in the Belgian GP yesterday but the major talking point was the opening corner battle between McLaren teammates Alonso and Hamilton, who went on to finish third and fourth respectively.

Alonso, desperately defending his third position, almost forced Hamilton off the track and out of the race. The 22-year-old British rookie, leading the championship by just two points, was upset with Alonso’s aggressive defence.

“The guy on the outside doesn’t always have the corner,” Hamilton said.

“I don’t know whether I was ahead, but there was enough room for us all to get round fair and square.

“I just feel for someone that’s always complaining about people doing unfair manoeuvres, and everyone wanting to be fair, someone I look up to, he has gone and swiped me and pushed me as wide as he could. I was just lucky there was a run-off area so I could take that.”

Alonso denied the change of circumstances has led to a difference in the way he and Hamilton will race against each other. “Same approach,” he said after leaving the podium at Spa-Francorchamps.

“Today it was just coincidence that we started third and fourth.

“We arrived together at the first corner and here at Spa it is a little bit more tricky because it is a 180 degrees corner. So I think it was just that, nothing changed in the approach.”