McLaren mechanics in 2007 were tripping over each other to work on Fernando Alonso’s side of the garage, claims Marc Priestley.
That season, McLaren formed an entirely new driver line-up of Alonso, the double reigning World Champion who had moved from Renault, alongside prodigious rookie talent Lewis Hamilton.
The duo replaced Kimi Raikkonen, who went on to win that year’s World Championship for Ferrari, and Juan Pablo Montoya, with the Colombian having exited McLaren halfway through 2006 to return to America, replaced by Pedro de la Rosa.
Priestley, who became the No 1 mechanic with the Woking-based squad before leaving to pursue a media and motivational-speaking career, says despite Hamilton having formed a huge reputation in junior series, it was Alonso who acted as a magnet within the team.
“The mechanics and engineers were squabbling amongst themselves, fighting to get onto Fernando’s car,” said Priestley in the latest edition of his ‘Pitlane Life Lessons’ podcast.
“People didn’t want to be on Lewis Hamilton’s car in that very first year because they didn’t expect much from him.
“As mechanics and engineers, you want to win that World Championship just as much as the drivers do, and so of course you had the best opportunity of doing that by being on the current World Champion’s car…or so we thought.
“Pretty much everyone in the factory had expectations, particularly once we realised we had a quick car, that Fernando was our guy to deliver the big results.”
But, of course, that was not how events unfolded. Rather than being a mere second string, Hamilton proved to be every bit as competitive as the Spaniard throughout the campaign and the duo ended up level on points, only one behind champion Raikkonen.
There was also a huge amount of internal tension that led to Alonso leaving McLaren after just one season and heading straight back to Renault.
Priestley added: “The two drivers at times went out of their way to wrestle…
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