Lewis Hamilton & Fernando Alonso avoided long battle of words after Belgian Grand Prix

• Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton take it easy on social media after crash at Belgian Grand Prix.The
• British driver had to drop out of the race after he flew over his rival’s car.
• Alonso called him “an idiot” after his first angry outburst on team radio.

After their heated crash at the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso took it easy on Monday to avoid a long war of words.

The seven-time world champion for Mercedes and his one-time teammate from McLaren crashed on the first lap. Hamilton had to drop out of the race after he flew over his rival’s Alpine car.

When he was angry, the experienced Spaniard called the British driver “an idiot.”

Hamilton wrote on social media, “First I want to apologise to my fans and especially those who came out to support me.

“After almost 30 years of racing, the feeling left from a mistake cuts just as deep as the first.

“My team, who work so hard, deserved more.”

Alonso, who is 41 years old, was also more calm in his comments after the race. He distanced himself from the impact of his first outburst on team radio, when he said, “What an idiot! Closing the door from the outside.

“I mean, we had a mega-start, but this guy only knows how to drive and start in first.”

Hamilton took full responsibility for the accident, but Alonso’s anger at first seemed to bother him.

He said that he had planned to talk to the Spaniard until he “heard what he said. I know that’s how things feel in the heat of the moment, but it’s nice to know how he feels about me”.

Alonso admitted “I was angry”, adding: “The radio, anyway, when you talk, you talk to your engineer and to your team.

“It’s a shame that sometimes everything is broadcasted, because if it’s broadcasted, it is what you say now (in the moment), this (right now) is how you behave in the media.

“When you’re talking on the radio, it’s only a comment to your team, normally.”

“I was frustrated there, for sure,” he continued.

“Every time we started in the first couple of rows of the grid there is something going on, unfortunately, and I felt that way.

“But, you know, it was a normal incident, and unfortunately Lewis had to retire the car after the incident.”

On the second lap, Alonso was seen giving Hamilton the finger. After that, he calmed down and finished the race in fifth place.

Since they fell out during Hamilton’s rookie year at McLaren in 2007, when they were both on the same team, the two have had an interesting history. After one year of a three-year deal, Alonso left the team.

The crash was the end of a bad weekend for 37-year-old Hamilton, who had qualified 1.8 seconds behind world champion Max Verstappen, who set the fastest time and won the race for Red Bull from 14th on the starting grid after getting a penalty.

The British driver, who hasn’t won yet this season, said, “We’re not where we want to be.”

“But we won’t stop pushing until we get to where we know where we belong. Sometimes this is life, it happens, but it’s not how we fall, it’s how we get up.

“I will be working as hard as I can to come back stronger.”

Alonso, on the other hand, liked to poke fun at Ferrari, with whom he had strategy problems, especially when he was trying to win his third drivers’ title in 2010.

When asked if he was surprised by the strange strategy the Italian team used in Belgium, which caused Charles Leclerc to finish sixth, he said he wasn’t.

“No, not so much. Ferrari has been doing strange things — and that was just another strange thing.”

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