How Alonso’s 2007 act of kindness saw McLaren staff threatened with the ‘sack’

Former McLaren engineer Mark Slade has revealed that Fernando Alonso presented his crew with envelopes containing €1,000 each during the 2007 season.

However, the team members were threatened with the “sack” when McLaren’s senior management found out about Alonso’s act of kindness, with those involved forced to hand back the envelopes.

McLaren staff threatened with ‘sack’ in 2007 after Fernando Alonso act of kindness

Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust

Alonso spent an explosive season at McLaren in 2007 after arriving from Renault as the reigning two-time world champion.

McLaren found itself excluded from the 2007 constructors’ standings as a result of the infamous Spygate scandal, with Alonso and rookie teammate Lewis Hamilton both missing out on the drivers’ title by a single point to Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.

Alonso, who currently competes for the Aston Martin team, parted company with McLaren at the end of 2007 before returning for a second stint with the team between 2015 and 2018.

F1 driving style analysis: The genius of Fernando Alonso

Revealed: Fernando Alonso’s secret weapon in battles with F1 rivals

From ‘GP2 engine’ to ‘karma’ – 10 of our favourite Fernando Alonso team radio messages

In an interview with Peter Windsor’s YouTube channel, Slade has recalled the moment that he felt showed a fundamental “mismatch” between Alonso and McLaren in 2007.

Slade revealed that he was asked by Alonso to gather his crew together ahead of the 2007 European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, where the two-time world champion presented them with envelopes containing €1,000.

Slade claimed that Alonso had regularly rewarded the crew working on his car during his spell at Renault.

However, the staff were forced to return the money to Alonso after Dave Ryan, McLaren’s sporting director at the time, found out.

Slade said: “At the Nurburgring in 2007, on the Thursday, Fernando came up to me and he said: ‘Can you give me a list of all the people who work on my car?’

“And I thought: “OK. Yeah, I can do that.’

“I came up with a list but I didn’t know what it was for. We have our pre-chat and at the end I said: ‘Oh, here’s the list.’

“He said: ‘Thanks very much.’

“And then a little while later, he came back in the motorhome and said: ‘These guys on the list, can you get them just to meet me in the back [of the garage]? I just want to have a chat with my guys before the weekend starts.’

“I was like: ‘Yeah, sure. No problem.’

“So I went to the garage, got the guys and said: ‘Can we all just gather? Fernando wants to have a quick word with us.’

“And he appeared at the back of the garage with a bunch of envelopes and said: ‘At Renault, I used to like to share in my winnings with my guys on my car and it’s not something I’ve done at McLaren so far, but I’d just like to show my appreciation for you being on my car and doing such a great job.’

“He handed these envelopes out and we opened them and I think there was 1,000 euros in each envelope. I was kind of gobsmacked.

“And this included Tyler [Alexander] and he was like: ‘Oh, blimey.’

“We were just like: ‘Well, that’s a bit strange. That’s never happened before.’

“I think we were just sort of nonplussed, we didn’t really know what to say. So we just said: ‘That’s really kind, thanks. Thanks very much.’

“And he was very humble [about it]. He was just saying: ‘No, I really appreciate your help.’

“We went off and did our thing and, a little while later, Dave Ryan came into the motorhome with a face of thunder.

“And he’s like: ‘What the hell just happened in the garage?’

‘Well, Fernando just did that.’

“And he said: ‘Yeah, I thought that’s what’s happened. Basically, you’ve got to give us all the money. You’ve got to give the money to me. You’ve got to give the money to the team. It’s completely outrageous, we can’t have that in this team.’

“I was like: ‘Oh, OK. Really sorry. Didn’t know that.’

“And he basically said: ‘Anyone that doesn’t hand their money back is going to get sacked.’

“It was made known and everyone gave their envelopes back.

“I believe the envelopes were basically given to back to Fernando and he was told never to do it again.”

Put to him that the 11 existing teams will likely have a policy in place to prevent drivers from casually rewarding their crews, Slade replied: “I’m sure. And I actually think that’s fine. I agree with that, really.

“But the story went out in the media that something had happened and basically [the narrative was]: ‘Fernando tries to buy the allegiance of his mechanics.’

“Maybe I’m naive but I didn’t feel that was what it was. I think that was a normal thing back in the day.

“I know people who work with other drivers. There’s a guy I knew had a watch that Riccardo Patrese had given him.

“Various people had various things that people who work with them have given them.

“And I gather it was true that he had given his guys stuff at Renault.”

Slade went on to claim that Hamilton and his father Anthony “started some of the stuff that went on” during McLaren’s highly dramatic 2007 season.

One example is believed to related to the events of qualifying at that year’s Hungarian Grand Prix, where Alonso was handed a costly five-place grid penalty for deliberately holding up Hamilton in the pit lane in Q3.

However, it later transpired that Hamilton, who went on to win the race, had ignored McLaren’s instructions to let Alonso past during the fuel-burn phase of Q3, with the pit lane incident an act of retaliation by Alonso.

Slade insisted that Alonso was a “nice guy to work with” and recalled a heartwarming moment when the pair were reunited during winter testing in early 2008.

Reflecting on the envelope incident, Slade said: “I think it showed the mismatch between Fernando and McLaren.

“I really liked Fernando and I liked working with him. He was a nice guy to work with.

“And yeah, he did play the game a little bit – but he was a good guy. He wasn’t a nasty person.

“And some of the stuff that went on was started by the Lewis camp, Lewis and his dad, in some of the things they did.

“But it just showed that Fernando didn’t fit at McLaren and he just got worse and worse after that, certainly after Monaco [where Hamilton dropped a strong hint that team orders had prevented him from challenging Alonso for victory].

“And I just thought it was a real shame, because he was a brilliant driver and he was an absolute massive asset to the team.

“It was just such a real shame it didn’t work out.

“And the next year, when he left McLaren and went to back to Renault, we were in Jerez and it was early one morning before the first day of testing.

“It was so dark outside and one of the guys came up into the motorhome for me and said: ‘There’s someone outside who wants to say hello.’

“I went down and it was Fernando! He just popped along and he gave me a big hug and he said: ‘It’s great to see you.’

“He was just such an honestly, openly friendly, lovely bloke.

“It’s a side of him that people don’t see. But he’s a good guy, honestly.

“I think he’s a good guy.”

Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!

Read next: Alonso ‘had to fight alone’ as Villeneuve revisits Hamilton rivalry that ‘destroyed the team’