How ironic that in the midst of one Formula One’s greatest seasons, McLaren Mercedes should start to fall apart when they are leading the drivers’ and the constructors’ championships. Most of the key relationships in the team have been seriously damaged.

What we saw on Saturday showed that McLaren and the embattled team principal, Ron Dennis, have lost control of their drivers. The fiction that Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are the best of friends has been exposed. What trust there was between them is broken.

Hamilton’s relationship with Dennis, his mentor over the past ten years, is under severe strain, as is Dennis’s all-important relationship with Hamilton’s father, Anthony. As if that was not bad enough, Dennis is barely on speaking terms with Alonso, who, since the Monaco Grand Prix in May, has been weighing up whether or not to leave the team at the end of this season.

There can be no doubt that Hamilton started the weekend’s problems by refusing to obey team orders to move over to allow his team-mate to pass during the early stages of the third session of qualifying, as had been agreed. Then Alonso retaliated by stopping Hamilton from probably taking pole by delaying him in the pits.

One of the central and potentially most damaging conundrums at the heart of this furore is the extent to which Alonso was taking the law into his hands or whether he was aided and abetted in stopping Hamilton not only by his engineer but by the “team”, in the shape of Dennis and other senior managers.

The FIA stewards at the Hungaroring sat long into the night on Saturday, listening to representations from Dennis, Alonso and Hamilton. They were able to examine all the McLaren radio traffic during the incident and came to the conclusion that Alonso and McLaren as a team were guilty, hence the penalty for Alonso of losing five positions on the grid and for the team in the form of denying them constructors’ points earned in yesterday’s race.

No doubt in the course of the appeal that McLaren have said they are going to pursue, the team will again deny that there was any such intention.

In its premeditation and its effect, the way Hamilton was stopped was another form of the “professional foul” we saw committed by Michael Schumacher during qualifying for last year’s Monaco Grand Prix when he “parked” his Ferrari at the Rascasse corner to prevent Alonso from taking pole position. On that occasion, as in Hungary, the stewards saw through it and Schumacher was relegated to the back of the grid.

A critical difference between the incidents, however, was that last year there was no punishment for Ferrari – the stewards were not able to nail the team and blamed only Schumacher. This time they were able to link the team to the misdemeanour, even though it was perpetrated against one of their own drivers, and McLaren have paid the price.

This incident will go down as one of McLaren’s worst (and most curious) in their history. After the drama on the track, there were chaotic scenes in the team’s large and poorly designed new motorhome – nicknamed “Terminal 6” – where Dennis and Alonso, in particular, gave some, at best, misleading explanations for what had happened, explanations that the stewards later dismissed.

This frailty comes at a bad time for a team facing the possibility of further punishment this month at the FIA Court of Appeal in Paris, where they must answer more questions over their possession of a large dossier of technical secrets belonging to Ferrari. Among the main lines of Dennis’s defence is his passionate claim that McLaren as a team and he as an individual are always honest about everything they do, something that is hard to reconcile with Saturday’s behaviour.

Hamilton’s conduct was also hugely significant. We saw here how hard and dirty he is prepared to get to fight for the title. He did not break the rules of the sport, but he broke those of his team at the expense of his teammate and got away with it. We often think of Hamilton as the PR man’s dream, the compliant acolyte of Dennis. Now we have seen his ruthless streak. When he saw a chance, albeit one he should not have had, to protect his championship lead at the expense of his main rival, he took it.

Chaos in the pits

How Lewis Hamilton was “fouled” at McLaren’s second pitstop during qualifying on Saturday:

13.46.00: McLaren remind Hamilton of the agreement to allow Alonso to pass him. Hamilton ignores these instructions.

13.56.44: Hamilton is told to pit and to do a fast in-lap. But then he is told: “Slow the pace, because Fernando is pitting in front of you.”

13.57.34: Alonso is told that he will be held for 20 seconds in the pits.

13.57.52-13.58.12: Alonso’s car remains stationary in the box.

13.57.12: The lollipop is raised for Alonso to leave. Hamilton’s car has arrived, Alonso remains in position for a further ten seconds.

13.57.22: Alonso departs, but it is too late for Hamilton to have a chance of taking pole position.

14.00.00: Session ends. Hamilton vents his fury at Ron Dennis, the McLaren team principal. Hamilton: “Don’t ever f****** do that to me again!” Dennis: “Don’t ever f****** speak to me like that again!” Hamilton: “Go f****** swivel!”

23.35.00: FIA stewards penalise Alonso five places on the grid and deny McLaren any constructors’ points earned in the grand prix.