Former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley has claimed that Fernando Alonso once gave out brown envelopes full of cash so the garage would like him more than Lewis Hamilton.
‘Fernando Alonso gave McLaren mechanics envelopes stuffed with cash in 2007’ : PlanetF1https://www.planetf1.com/news/fernando-alonso-mclaren-envelopes-cashThe young Brit’s first season in the sport reached a climax when Alonso purposefully stopped in the pits to slow his team-mate’s effort at qualifying in the Hungarian Grand Prix. It has now been revealed that the dirty tactics were not confined solely to on the track either.
One of Fernando’s tactics is to try and bring the whole team over to his side of the garage,” the 45-year-old said. “He tries to wrestle control.
“There was a moment during 2007 when we had them both where Fernando turned up at a race and I arrived and Fernando’s manager or his trainer is handing out little brown envelopes stuffed with cash to everybody who wasn’t on Lewis’ car.
I remember opening up the envelope and there was like €1,500 or something.
“You start looking around and your colleagues have all got them going ‘have you opened yours? How much did you get?’ And all of a sudden this starts spreading around the team and the only people that didn’t get them were Lewis’ crew.
The tactic proved unsuccessful though as the team discovered the handouts and made the recipients donate the cash to charity.