Two prodigious talents, whose fortunes have been intertwined and opposed for over a decade. Andrew Benson looks at the rivalry between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton ahead of the British grand prix and asks: is there time for one final hurrah?

BRITISH GP SPECIAL

Sixteen years after they first got stuck into each other, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton once again find themselves contesting the same piece of track somewhere close to the front of Formula 1. For British fans, the prospect of witnessing the two drivers in such close proximity at Hamilton’s home race next month, so often the scene of on-track drama, marks a rivalry that has come full circle.

The routes they have travelled to return to this point could hardly be more different. Hamilton’s a somewhat unexpected fall from a place of grace that made him the most successful driver in F1 history through eight glorious years with Mercedes; Alonso’s a surprise leap back to competitiveness after a decade of purgatory in the midfield, or worse.

The stories of these two giants of motor sport were initially intertwined in a bigbang maelstrom of competitiveness, controversy and rancour, then ran in parallel for a time, before drifting apart. Now, the shifting sands of competitive forces, of team progression and regression, have brought them back together.

Before Mercedes’ monopolisation of F1, Alonso had 32 victories and two championships, Hamilton 22 and one. Hamilton’s career statistics look very different now; Alonso’s just the same. But as well as being outstanding, epochdefining racing drivers, they remain also the most charismatic, most interesting and most quotable stars in F1.

As Hamilton’s worldwide fame grew, through success on track and his emergence as a campaigner for social and racial justice off it, so through his years of famine Alonso never lost his box-office appeal. Whether that was through forcing his McLaren to results it didn’t deserve, or entertaining antics such as taking to a lawn chair in Brazil when his car had ground to a halt for the umpteenth time.

All the while, they have been eyeing each other with guarded respect, each recognising in the other perhaps the only person fitting to be considered a true rival, at least until the advent of a young Dutchman called Max Verstappen. In turn, they were seen from the outside as two drivers whose careers would forever be inextricably connected, no matter how far their competitive destinies had diverged.

Smile and wave, boys: a team picture from Fuji, 2007. But the rot had already set in for McLaren

GETTY IMAGES, DPPI

Fernando Alonso became irked by hotshot team-mate Lewis Hamilton, and fell out with McLaren.

By 2011 both Alonso and Hamilton found themselves struggling

Hamilton and Alonso are once again locking horns – for a place on the podium

It took just half of the first grand prix of the 2023 Formula 1 season to remind the world what it had missed for much of the previous decade. The three laps in which they contested fourth place in the Bahrain Grand Prix were the greatest and most thrilling example of racing skills seen so far this year, climaxing with the best overtaking move.