Lewis Hamilton shares motivation behind cheeky joke on Fernando Alonso

Seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton has shared his reasoning behind a brutal putdown of Fernando Alonso on social media.

Alonso had initially launched a furious tirade on team radio aimed at Hamilton during the latter stages of the Singapore Grand Prix when the Spaniard was unhappy with Hamilton drifting off track at a number of corners as his brakes failed.

"I don't f****** believe it, I don't f****** believe it, I don't f****** believe it," Alonso said about his old team-mate.

That led to Hamilton taking to social media to poke fun at Alonso, referring to iconic British sitcom character Victor Meldrew, whose trademark quote was "I don't believe it!" from the iconic show 'One Foot in the Grave.

Ahead of the following race weekend at the United States GP, Hamilton revealed his putdown of Alonso was all part of some lighthearted fun.

"I don’t believe it! No, I haven’t seen Fernando - I haven’t seen him since then," Hamilton revealed in the drivers' press conference. "But yeah, it was just a bit of fun.

"It reminded me of that show - I hadn’t seen it in 20-plus years. I thought it was funny, so I posted it. What is life if you can’t have a little fun?"

Hamilton and Alonso's McLaren battle

The feud between Hamilton and Alonso rolls all the way back to the 2007 season, Hamilton's first in the sport.

Alonso joined McLaren off the back of consecutive world championship titles earned at Renault, and expected to walk into the team as their championship challenger.

However, young British rookie Hamilton had other ideas. Hamilton claimed four wins throughout what was one of the greatest rookie seasons in the history of the sport, and he finished level on points with Alonso.

Both drivers ultimately lost out to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, who won the 2007 title by a single point. But the story of the season surrounded McLaren and their blockbuster driver pairing.

Alonso was not happy with McLaren's reluctance to fully back him in the championship race against Raikkonen, and he and Hamilton were involved in several off-track squabbles.

On top of that, Alonso was one of the main catalysts of the 'Spygate' controversy, threatening to release incriminating emails, causing McLaren boss Ron Dennis to contact the FIA and tell them to investigate the team, which resulted in disqualification from that year's constructors' championship.

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