"He has been a tremendous driver, and a legend of our sport" - Fernando Alonso calls it a 'pleasure' to share some time with Lewis Hamilton at McLaren

Fernando Alonso has called it a "pleasure" to have spent some time with Lewis Hamilton at McLaren. The Alpine driver was the Briton's first teammate in F1 at McLaren in 2007. They went onto fight for the title that season. Since then, Lewis Hamilton has gone on to win seven world titles and break most of the racing records.

Alonso was asked to share his feelings on being the Mercedes driver's teammate more than 15 years ago and if he sees any change in Hamilton since they first met. The Spaniard was quite complimentary of the seven-time world champion and said that it had been a pleasure to share time with him. He also congratulated Hamilton on the 300 races he will complete this weekend.

Alonso said:

“I don’t think that he changed much to be honest. He had the talent, already in 2007 and he still have the talent now with experience and he has been a tremendous driver, and a legend of our sport. So it has been always a pleasure to share all this time with him and back then probably no one thought that someone will be able to win seven titles as Michael.’’

He further said:

“But yeah, the journey has been amazing and the team that they all build at Mercedes over these years, he was outstanding. Yes, congratulations for the 300 and hopefully another win soon.’’

---

Lewis Hamilton hoping to get closer to the battle at the front

Lewis Hamilton has been extremely consistent in the last few races with three consecutive podiums to his name. The Mercedes driver was hoping that the team could close the gap of the last few tenths to the front and he could fight for race wins in the near future.

He said:

“It’s been really positive to have some consistency come back in, as I was saying earlier, and bit by bit you’re getting a little bit more comfortable in the car. And also with the direction where you set the car up…where you position the car, what the car will accept? Obviously it bit me in the last race with the crash in qualifying but otherwise, as I said, we’re constantly adding performance, we’re constantly progressing forwards and there’s a lot to come in the next races.’’

He continued:

“So I’m excited about that and as I said, in the last race we were only a few tenths off the lead guys in qualifying so I think slowly we’re getting closer. The gap may be bigger in some tracks, who knows, but…in the last race, I was seeing it on TV, as I said, the battle up ahead, I hope that I get to be a bit more in the battle sometime soon.’’

With the 2022 French GP this weekend, Lewis Hamilton will become just the sixth driver to enter the 300-race club.