Lewis Hamilton’s brilliant victory in the Canadian Grand Prix has split the McLaren Mercedes team wide open. Days after the young Briton recorded his maiden win in Formula One, Fernando Alonso, the world champion, has said that he has never been comfortable with his new teammate.

Alonso endured a dreadful race in Montreal, during which he went off four times, once in an attempt to pass Hamilton on pole position, and finished seventh. Up until now the 25-year-old Spaniard, the sport’s youngest back-to-back world champion, has denied paddock rumours that he is unhappy at McLaren and speculation that his advisers have been convinced for some time that the team’s heart is with their young British superstar.

In an interview with Spanish radio, Alonso said that he had never felt 100 per cent comfortable at McLaren but claimed that he had expected this to be the case as soon as he knew, last December, that Hamilton, 22, was going to be his teammate. “Well, right from the start I’ve never felt totally comfortable,” he told Cadena Ser radio station.

Then, addressing the question of where the main effort at the team is going, he said: “I have a British team-mate in a British team and he’s doing a great job and we know that all the support and help is going to him and I understood that from the beginning. But I’m not complaining. I’ve won two races out of six and I’ve finished on the podium four times and I have those 40 points that will allow me to fight for the title in the end.”

Alonso’s remarks set the alarm bells ringing at McLaren, where media strategists have been spending more and more of their time trying to down-play the increasing signs that the battle for superiority between the drivers is escalating, as first Hamilton and then Alonso use interviews with their respective national media to advance their case.

Ron Dennis, the team principal, is the man in the middle trying to balance the ambitions of the experienced Spaniard, who is struggling to find his rhythm in a new team while under acute pressure from Hamilton, a rookie whose speed and consistency have propelled him eight points clear at the head of the drivers’ championship after six races.

Last night, Dennis launched what sounded like a damage limitation exercise, issuing a statement in which he argued that Alonso’s comments should not be taken out of context and underlining that his team are made up of “extremely passionate and competitive” people and there was bound to be “healthy competition” between the two sides of the garage.

“However, I can categorically state once again that both drivers have equal equipment, equal support and equal opportunity to win within the team and both Fernando and Lewis know and support this,” Dennis said. “Fernando’s comments, when read carefully, are correct; he hasn’t been with the team long and the relationship can only continue to develop. The team is not going to do anything to jeopardise this positive and growing partnership.”

Hamilton was in New York yesterday fulfilling sponsorship commitments, while Alonso has chosen to stay in Canada for a couple of days before both drivers head to Indianapolis today to prepare for this weekend’s United States Grand Prix on a track at which Alonso has always struggled.

After his maiden win in Canada, Hamilton’s star continues to rise, with Silverstone reporting that it has experienced a sudden rush to snap up the last tickets for the British Grand Prix on July 8. “The reaction to his win has been amazing,” Richard Philips, the managing director of Silverstone, said. “We haven’t seen this level of interest since Mansell-mania in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Tickets have been selling steadily since the start of the season, but demand has gone through the roof in recent weeks.”

Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One’s ringmaster, who has made no secret of his desire to cancel the British Grand Prix after 2009 if Silverstone fails to upgrade its facilities, is clearly going to have to think again.