Lewis Hamilton’s complaints about Red Bull’s recent dominance in Formula 1 demonstrate that he possesses “a short memory”, according to Fernando Alonso.
Red Bull has been untouchable during the early exchanges of the 2023 season to notch 1-2 finishes in both races, including a recovery from 15th place for Max Verstappen in Saudi Arabia.
Verstappen’s charge through the field in Jeddah led Hamilton to claim the Red Bull RB19 was the fastest package in F1 history, exceeding that of his title-winning Mercedes cars.
Hamilton scooped six of his seven titles during Mercedes’ record-breaking run of success that consisted of a streak of eight successive Constructors’ Championship wins.
Alonso has therefore dismissed Hamilton’s remark that Red Bull is more dominant now than Mercedes were during the height of its success at the start of the turbo-hybrid engine era.
“I don’t agree at all”, Alonso stated in a recent interview with French outlet L’Equipe.
“Last week [in Saudi Arabia] I finished 20 seconds behind Checo [Perez] and Max [Verstappen]. He and [Nico] Rosberg were a minute ahead in 2014 and 2015.
“He has a short memory, he’s getting old!”
Alonso and Hamilton have shared an intense rivalry ever since they partnered each other as team-mates for a single season at McLaren in 2007.
Hamilton’s lightning speed and supreme consistency behind the wheel as a rookie caught the established two-time champion by surprise and led to tensions escalating internally, with both eventually missing out on the title to Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.
Although the pair battled occasionally on track through the proceeding years in separate teams, Hamilton’s move to the soon-to-be conquering Mercedes outfit coincided with Alonso trading an underperforming Ferrari for a surprise second stint with McLaren come 2015.
But the uncompetitive and unreliable nature of the team’s Honda power unit meant Alonso was in no position to stop the devastating Hamilton and Mercedes combination as the Brit eventually went on to surpass the record mark for wins and poles in F1.
Mercedes’ struggles to get to grips with the latest technical regulations introduced last year, however, saw Hamilton fail to record a race victory across a season for the first time in his F1 career, alongside also being defeated by new-team-mate George Russell.
With the German marque in trouble again at the start of 2023, Russell has appeared to be more comfortable inside the cockpit of the flawed W14 than the seven-time champion.
Alonso maintains the advantage Russell has enjoyed over Hamilton in qualifying this year is evidence of how much car performance plays a role in the sport.
“With a normal car, you can see that he [Hamilton] has weaknesses,” the two-time title winner assessed.
“Before, he drove alone or sometimes with his team-mate. But look, he is the record holder for poles and George Russell has just given him a 2-0 in qualifying this season.
“It just goes to show how much the car is still a key factor.”
Alonso’s comments ahead of this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix are not the first time he has launched a verbal attack on Hamilton’s inability to perform without a front-running car.
The pair previously clashed at last season’s Belgian Grand Prix when a collision on the opening lap saw Alonso label Hamilton an “idiot” who can only “race starting first”.
