According to a Formula1News report, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button worked with each other for 2 years as teammates during a difficult time for McLaren.
Fernando Alonso is very well known as the Formula 1 diva because the 41-year-old is notoriously hard to deal with and isn’t slow to express his resentment when things don’t go in his favor.
The Spaniard will be heading to Aston Martin for the 2023 season. He has developed a reputation for his antics and shenanigans, including memorably refusing to leave his pit box during qualifying in an attempt to stop his teammate Lewis Hamilton from winning the pole position in the past.
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In a conversation with Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button claimed that Alonso was the same when the two of them worked together at McLaren in 2015 and 2016.
Both of them found it difficult to fight for points in the Honda-powered McLaren car, leaving them to practically battle each other at many race weekends. Button has now disclosed some of the astonishing strategies Alonso would employ to defeat him.
Button said: “Fernando would play games a lot more, which in a way, I was at a point in my career where I was kind of up for games,”
“We weren’t fighting anyone else. We were so slow that we were fighting against each other and we would play games, some of which I don’t want to go into too much.
“If he was behind me, he’d say ‘there was a problem with the car’ and retire from the race! We weren’t scoring points, so he was saving the car for the next race, but he’d say ‘there’s a problem, there’s a problem!’ [The team] would say ‘no Fernando, there is no problem. Keep driving’.”
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Button’s comments are shocking since it doesn’t speak highly of them at all that a driver would choose to fake a mechanical problem merely due to him losing a race.
It’s also important to note that Button said there were several instances of games that were identical to this one, but he declined to tell Rosberg about any more scenarios, probably because they may paint his former teammate in a more negative light.
Aston Martin concedes that they are aware of Alonso’s reputation for turning into somewhat of a toxic presence when he is dissatisfied with the team’s ability to meet his needs, but they also hold the opinion that a healthy work environment depends on having open and honest communication about the team’s capabilities.
