‘I could never accept being second to Alonso’ – How Lewis Hamilton made his mark at McLaren on F1 debut

May 30, 2026 · Yahoo Sports

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Back at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton took his first of a record 105 grand prix victories in Formula 1.

Hamilton had taken the F1 world by storm on his debut with McLaren, taking only podium finishes in his very first five outings; he won a chaotic Montreal race from pole position, only briefly ceding the lead after his first pitstop.

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The rookie had come into the race on equal points with team-mate Fernando Alonso, who had won the previous two world titles, but reckoned he was getting the short end of the stick when it came to his fuel load in qualifying; rules meant cars were readied for the first stint of the race ahead of Q3, so a longer opening stint meant a heavier car in the battle for pole position.

Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, Fernando Alonso, McLaren

“I got to Formula 1 and being a rookie to a world champion was tough, you know,” Hamilton said at the 2026 Montreal race. “Fernando being so talented and so fast. But I’m so competitive, so rather than thinking, ‘I’m a rookie, just be happy finishing second,’ I could never accept it. And I’d always want to be pushing myself, I want to be competing. I wanted to win, and that was an overpowering feeling.

“And I remember the first five races, naturally, in the fuel area, they would always give Fernando the lighter fuel load, separating the cars by two laps. And so, it always felt to me that I had to do the work twice as hard, if not more, because Fernando was so quick. I always had to be at least a tenth quicker than him or more, tenth and a bit, to be able to be ahead of him.

“And I had pushed so hard to get equal fuel. I was like, ‘Just give me the chance and I’ll show you what I can do.’ And they gave us equal fuel in this race, and I qualified pole and then I won. And they did it for this one and Indianapolis afterwards. So, I think it was a real special moment for me because I fought for something I truly believed in and when they gave us the opportunity, I affirmed that belief. And then the rest was history.”

Lewis Hamilton, McLaren

Hamilton did make an impact in Montreal qualifying that year, setting pole with a 0.456s gap to Alonso.

As for his claim that he was consistently getting more fuel, it is difficult to fact-check with accuracy as fuel load data was not publicly available at the time, but pitstop statistics mostly corroborate it.

Hamilton did stop one to three laps later than Alonso in Australia, Malaysia, Spain and Monaco – the latter irked him as qualifying was so important in the principality and the extra fuel, an estimated 9kg, was a substantial burden in the fight for pole.

But at the Bahrain GP, Hamilton stopped three laps earlier after outqualifying his team-mate for the first time, so there is reasonable cause to believe this was the first time he had less fuel, not Canada. However, this does not discredit Hamilton’s account at large.

“I’m going to give you a chance”

In the same press conference on Thursday last week, drivers were asked to recall their first ‘welcome to F1’ moment, and Hamilton pointed to the 2006 Italian Grand Prix. This was the day Ferrari announced it had signed McLaren driver Kimi Raikkonen to replace the retirement-bound Michael Schumacher, 24 hours after Hamilton won the GP2 title as a dominant rookie.

Lewis Hamilton celebrates his GP2 title with Norbert Haug, Mercedes, Frederic Vasseur, ART GP, and Ron Dennis, McLaren

Alonso had already been signed to one of the vacant McLaren seats, but Hamilton was believed to be in contention for the second drive alongside recurrent stand-in Pedro de la Rosa.

“My moment was Monza 2006,” Hamilton said. “Just won the GP2 championship. It’s on the grid, Kimi was on pole and I had the privilege of going onto the grid, and I was standing in front of Kimi’s car, and Ron [Dennis, McLaren boss] put his arm around me and he told me, looking up to Turn 1, he says, ‘I’m going to give you a chance.’ That was the moment.

“In the moment, I couldn’t quite believe it and I didn’t know if he was like, ‘I’m going to give you a chance’… I didn’t know what it was going to be a chance at, if it was really… That’s what I was thinking when I left. But obviously that was the moment that he had decided that he was going to give me a chance for 2007.”

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