Has world champion Fernando Alonso stooped to dirty tricks to foil McLaren
teammate Lewis Hamilton's title dreams?

The Planet F1 website claims that the Spaniard has been providing the British
rookie with confusing data used to set up his car for races.

That was one reason why Hamilton finished Sunday's British Grand Prix in third
place, despite starting from pole position.

Alonso, who has 58 points, finished second and managed to cut the Briton's
lead at the top of the drivers' standings to 12 points.

Tensions between the two teammates had been spiralling since Hamilton won his
first race in Canada last month.

Alonso made it clear he was less than enamoured by what he regarded as
over-exuberant celebrations by the British team after the British driver's
success.

Their relationship got worse at the US Grand Prix a week later.

Alonso had topped the time-sheets in all three practice sessions and the first
two qualifying stints.

But it was Hamilton who took pole in the third and final qualifying session,
before going on to win his second straight race of the season.

At one point in the race, Alonso was repeatedly on the radio to his pit team,
complaining that he was the faster of the two McLarens.

But, if the Spaniard did ask to be let through into the lead at Hamilton's
expense, this was ignored.

After the race, he complained to Spanish radio that he was unhappy about
sharing his testing data with the 22-year-old.

"The one that gets the car ready on a Friday is me," he said. "All my data is
available to Hamilton, and I am sure that it is a help to him."

But, since his second place at Indianapolis, Alonso's performances on Friday
testing at both Magny-Cours and Silverstone have been been notably tardy, noted
Planet F1.

In France, the two-time world champion finished the opening day in a lowly
eighth.

In Britain, he was similarly uncompetitive, setting the sixth-fastest lap time
of the day. It was almost a full second slower than pace-setter Kimi Raikkonen
of Ferrari.

On Saturday, however, Alonso bounced back, recording a lap time in qualifying
that was considerably faster than Hamilton's, once fuel levels had been taken
into account.

"On Saturday, I went faster than Hamilton. But, with less fuel in the tank, he
was able to win pole, and it seemed that there was a big party," Alonso
reflected smugly.

"Because of that, finishing ahead of him tastes even sweeter. Since Canada, I
have been a lot quicker than him."

Hamilton said his lack of race pace in the British Grand Prix, which was won by Raikkonen, was purely a matter of the McLaren not handling to his liking,
although he did make a mistake in a pit-stop.

"Throughout the whole weekend, I've been struggling to perfect the balance and
sort of driving around the issues that I had with the car," he said.

Despite making a high-profile move from Renault to McLaren at the end of last
season, Alonso has seen Hamilton steal the limelight.

The Briton has finished on the podium in each of the opening nine races so far.

Alonso has claimed that Hamilton, who from the age of 13 was under the wing of
team owner Ron Dennis, was getting preferential treatment.

"From the first moment, I was not comfortable with everything," Alonso said.
"It's an English team, with an English teammate.

"You know that all of the help goes his way. I've understood that from the
first moment and, well, I'm not moaning about it."

Four-time world champion Alain Prost blames McLaren for any tensions inside
the Woking-based team's garage.

"I think now having two equal cars within the same team is a mistake," said the
Frenchman, who was once embroiled in a furious spat with his McLaren teammate,
Ayrton Senna.

"In the end, it will hurt them because it generates too much tension."
Alonso, for one, would not mind seeing Hamilton suffer more technical glitches.

"It's good that the championship leader has more difficulties on track. I must
be on the podium always, one step higher than him," he said this week.