Many gave their opinion on what happened in one of the most tense years in recent decades in memory of Formula 1the course 2007where the internal battle between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamiltonmismanaged by Ron Denniscreate a non-breathable atmosphere in McLaren. And one of the last to do it was someone who lived through it all as a luxury spectator. Is about Mark Lanewho is a career engineer at Fernando Alonso in that year in McLaren and now gives some brushstrokes of what happened in an interview with the ‘Motorlat.com’ portal.
The course ended in Kimi Raikkonen taking the title by just one point in the final round match hamilton Y alonso, both tied for 109 points, one of Kimi’s 110 finishes. They all agreed McLaren He gave the Finn the crown without knowing how to deal with the tense situation that exists in a team where the current champion of 2005 and 2006 has to survive, Fernando Alonso, and an ambitious rookie trained with the support of McLaren-Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton. In addition to losing that title, McLaren also lost Fernando Alonso, who will return to Renault. In this sense, Mark Lane believes that McLaren was wrong in not giving more support to the Spaniard, because with him they could have won the crowns in 2007 and 2008.
“To be honest, the problems are more within the team. The team environment is quite difficult. I think things happened that exacerbated the problems that were there. I would say it could have been handled better from a management perspective and a team goal. Things didn’t work out the way they were supposed to. We really just threw away the championship in 2007.”Slade commented.
“I think if Fernando had been properly backed we probably would have won the 2007 and 2008 championships. Who knows what will happen after this, but there you are. It is the way it is“, he added.
What was it like working with Alonso?
In addition, the engineer also wanted to clarify what it was like to work with Fernando Alonso. “I had no problem with Fernando himself. I really enjoyed working with him.”
“Working with Fernando was great. He is the ‘Terminator’ of Formula 1. Isn’t he? He just doesn’t give up, and he’s very fast. You just know you’re working with someone who is desperately trying to win every race he’s in, so it’s great.”
Mark Slade has extensive experience in F1. In 2022, he arrived at Haas in place of Ed Regan as Kevin Magnussen’s engineer, but before that he had worked with many top drivers such as Hakkinen, Schumacher, Coulthard, Raikkonen, Alonso himself and also with Maldonado, Kovalainen , Hulkenberg, Ocon, and Palmer. Slade spent 18 years at McLaren, a team he led in 1991. In 2010 he signed for Renault and then joined Mercedes to be an engineer for Michael Schumacher. He returned to Renault in 2012 and from 2017 to 2019 he was an engineer for Hülkenberg and later for Ocon in 2020.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
