Alonso: No fear of Hamilton repeat with Vandoorne

Fernando Alonso insists he does not fear a repeat of his turbulent season alongside Lewis Hamilton when Stoffel Vandoorne joins McLaren next year.

When Alonso first joined McLaren in 2007 he was paired with rookie Hamilton who had just won the GP2 title. The pair suffered a fractious relationship which eventually saw them both miss out on the title by a point and Alonso leave the team just one year into a three-year contract.

After two years alongside Jenson Button back at McLaren, Alonso will race alongside Vandoorne in 2017 after the Belgian was finally promoted following a promising career in junior categories. However, the Spaniard says he has yet to have a similar situation to the one he faced alongside Hamilton a decade ago.

"Every team-mate I met after Hamilton it was the same question," he is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. "When I joined Renault, the following year, it was [Nelson] Piquet [Jr]. So they said, 'GP2 frontrunner, a young guy, so it will be the same as Hamilton.' It was not. Then it was [Romain] Grosjean. They said, 'GP2 frontrunner, in 2009 Grosjean will be very fast.' He was not fast.

"Same with Felipe [Massa]. 'Be careful, because in Ferrari, many years for Felipe, he's used to the team, he will be very fast.' He was not fast. Then it was Kimi [Raikkonen], they were saying, 'A world champion is coming back to Ferrari, he's very, very fast.' He was not fast.

"Let's see how is Stoffel. I am not worried, we are not at the moment in a title position, or a title contender, so that we need to fight. Now we are in a moment where we need to work together, and we need to help the team in whatever way we can to make this difficult period as short as possible.

"So I'm happy with the arrival of Stoffel, new fresh air, very talented in GP2 and in Japan this year. But I'm not afraid..."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.