2007 was a dramatic year for McLaren in Formula 1. They had the fastest car, Fernando Alonso (which came from two consecutive titles) already lewis hamilton (the great promise of the moment) as pilots, but a tension and rivalry arose that went down in the history of the ‘Great Circus’.
Nevertheless, Ron Dennishead of the McLaren team at that time, did not know how to manage the situation and both ended up with 109 points in the World Cup, one behind the 2007 world champion, Kimi Raikkonen.
mark sladeFernando Alonso’s race engineer that season, in statements to ‘Motorlat.com’ made it clear that the situation in the team could be greatly improved: “To be honest, the problems were within the team. The atmosphere was pretty poor.. I think some things happened that exaggerated the problems that were there. I would say it could have been handled better from a management perspective and a team goal. Things didn’t work out. We really just threw away the championship in 2007“.
In addition, Kevin Magnussen’s current engineer at Haas confessed that if the team had supported Alonso, they would have won the title: “I think if Fernando had been properly backed we probably would have won the 2007 and 2008 championships.. Who knows what would have happened. It’s the way it was.”
Finally, the internal dispute put the title on a platter for Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari, who took the championship in 2007. Given the tension at McLaren, Alonso headed back to the Renault team in 2008, the year in which he won his first Hamilton World Cup. .