By IANS
London : Hungarian Grand Prix winner Lewis Hamilton admitted his relationship with McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso had hit rock-bottom after Sunday’s race.
“He doesn’t seem to be speaking to me, so I don’t know if he has a problem,” said the 22-year-old Hamilton told BBC Sports after the race in Budapest.
“If I walk in and I see him then I will speak to him, but I won’t go looking for him and make him feel better.”
Hamilton’s win came after Alonso was demoted five grid places for holding up his team-mate during qualifying.
The relationship between two-time Formula One world champion Alonso – who joined McLaren from Renault this year – and F1 rookie Hamilton has appeared strained since the Briton’s astonishing start to his debut season.
In June, McLaren boss Ron Dennis was forced to play down Alonso’s comments that the team favoured Hamilton.
Matters came to a head during the build-up to the Hungarian Grand Prix when Spaniard Alonso stayed in the pits just long enough to prevent Hamilton from getting out in time to complete a final qualifying lap.
That came after Hamilton had refused to obey team orders to let Alonso past at the start of qualifying as part of a pre-arranged strategy.
Alonso was angered by the penalty, feeling he had explained to the race stewards why he had stayed in the pits for a further 10 seconds after being given the signal to go.
“I hope he still speaks to me. I’m easy to get on with. I don’t hold grudges over anyone,” added Hamilton, who stretched his lead in the drivers’ championship to seven points with victory in Hungary.
“But if he doesn’t want to speak to me, then that’s for him to decide. But I’m open.”
Alonso said his relationship with Hamilton had not changed.
“It’s the same as before the race,” he said.
“Each of us looks at his own interests, trying to do the best race possible, with the best strategy, and I try to do the same with my group of engineers and mechanics.
“But I guess he will have a different relationship with the team in the next race, because I don’t think they are very happy, and I will have the same one (relationship).”
Hamilton said he had cleared the air with Dennis, who admitted Sunday that the tension between the drivers had led to “a very difficult time” for the team.
“We sat down, we spoke about it and came to a mutual understanding and started with a clean slate,” said Hamilton, who has known Dennis since he was 10.
“The relationship we have is very strong and something like this is not going to come between us, so we will move on to bigger and better things.”