Lewis Hamilton has accused Fernando Alonso, his McLaren Mercedes team-mate and bitter World Championship rival, of “swiping” across him as the Briton tried to get ahead of the Spaniard at the first corner of yesterday’s Belgian Grand Prix.

In the latest evidence of the breakdown in relations between the drivers, Hamilton, who finished fourth behind Alonso and a Ferrari one-two for Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, said that he would have expected more from the defending world champion.

“I don’t know whether I was ahead, but there was enough room for us all to get round fair and square,” Hamilton, whose lead in the World Championship is down to two points with three races left, said. “For someone that’s always complaining about people doing unfair manoeuvres and wanting everyone to be fair, and someone I look up to, he has gone and swiped me and pushed me as wide as he could. I was just really lucky there was a run-off area.”

Alonso, whose long-term future at McLaren is in doubt over his role in the McLaren-Ferrari spying scandal and his alleged attempt to threaten Ron Dennis, the team principal with informing the FIA, the sport’s governing body, that he had Ferrari secrets on his computer unless he was made his team’s No 1 driver, was happy with his driving. His view was shared by Dennis, who said that this had been a normal racing incident that, had it involved cars from different teams, would have gone unnoticed.

Among those in the paddock in Spa was Max Mosley, the president of the FIA, who said that Hamilton and Alonso should have been thrown out of the drivers’ championship as part of the team’s punishment for their involvement in the spy scandal. Mosley also indicated that if a McLaren driver wins the title, there would “always be a question mark over it”.

The increasingly outspoken Hamilton dismissed his comments. “I don’t have anything to say to or about Max Mosley,” he said. “We’ve all worked hard this year and the way I feel is that the team has done absolutely nothing wrong and neither have I. I don’t see why people should say that if I win, it’s a tainted championship.”

Hamilton also implied that Alonso did not care about McLaren as a team as much as he did. “I feel more attached to the team and I care a bit more, I think,” he said. His comments came amid unsubstantiated claims that Alonso has been paying his mechanics an extra £700 a race to motivate them in his battle with Hamilton.

Lurking is another spying controversy, this time involving technical information allegedly taken by a McLaren design engineer to Renault, which Mosley is awaiting a report on.