Fernando Alonso's astonishing demands to 'block Lewis Hamilton from gaining F1 data' revealed

Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso's astonishing demands to 'block Lewis Hamilton from gaining F1 data' revealed

Not a massive surprise they didn't say 'yeah, ok!'

Chris Deeley

Tuesday 14 July 2026 20:57

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Fernando Alonso's former race engineer Mark Slade has talked about a huge demand the Spaniard made while Lewis Hamilton's team-mate at McLaren.

Alonso's demand – which was refused by the team – was for Hamilton to no longer be given access to his data, as he believed that a data freeze would affect his rookie team-mate far more than him during their volatile season together in 2007.

Despite having signed a three-year deal, the Spaniard's time at McLaren was so chaotic and contentious that he left after a single season, falling out with both Hamilton and the team, who he felt were giving their unproven rookie preferential treatment over their two-time world champion new signing.

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Slade, who worked closely with Alonso in that sole season, told Peter Windsor that he believes the two-time champion's outlandish demand was a response to what he already felt was an unfair situation at the team.

Alonso engineer: McLaren turned down demand for team reasons

Slade, who worked as race engineer for some of the sport's greats including Mike Hakkinen, Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher, explained: "When Fernando and Lewis was at its worst in 2007, Fernando actually demanded that Lewis not be given access to his data towards the middle of the year around Silverstone time.

"On the basis that he would happily not have access to Lewis's data, he was quite confident that the advantage was all for Lewis in having access to both cars' data. It wasn't granted, obviously.

"But Fernando had access to all the information as well. What he should have done is use that information more effectively to improve his own performance, in my view.

"Because, and as an engineer, the more information you have, the better judgment, and the faster the team will go. Because you're not just beating your teammate, you're actually trying to beat all the other cars on the track as well.

"So the the main point from McLaren in refusing that would be that we need to make both our cars as fast as possible, and if we limit what we can do on both sides of the garage, we're also limiting our overall performance."

Alonso 'very very unhappy' after demand turned down

"Ultimately it was rejected," Slade continued. "But I think he was very serious about it. He was very, very unhappy about the fact that he didn't get what he wanted.

"But it showed how unhappy the whole situation had become. His demand of that was a consequence of that he felt he was being treated unfairly in many other ways as well.

"So it was just one of many factors, and it was his way of maybe slightly clumsily, trying to correct what he saw as an unfair situation."

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