Did Alonso brake-check Hamilton?
"They're not as expert as they think," said Renault's engineering chief.
He was armed with telemetry print-outs from Alonso's R28 single seater, showing that the Spaniard was hard on the throttle when Hamilton hit him during the Bahrain grand prix.
"So all I can say from our side is there's no blame attributable to Fernando, which is what some of the speculation might be," Symonds added.
The Spanish daily Diario AS took a harder line than simply exonerating Alonso of blame, by headlining that the 26-year-old was the "victim of Hamilton's stupidity".
Neither driver, however, turned on one another in any serious way, despite their spectacular falling out as teammates last year.
"The incident doesn't make much sense to me, but thankfully it didn't affect my race too much," Alonso told the Spanish press corps.
04/06/08 (GMM) Fernando Alonso on Sunday refused to accept the blame for a collision with his former McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton.
The incident, which had some British pundits wondering whether the Spaniard had deliberately slowed down or even 'brake tested' Hamilton, resulted in the former championship leader having to pit for a new nose following a dire start to the Bahrain grand prix.
The rear wing on Alonso's Renault was damaged, but he did not accept the blame for the accident.
"The McLaren was just a lot faster than my car and he crashed into me," the 26-year-old, who finished the race tenth, told the Spanish broadcaster Telecinco.
After the race, Renault technical boss Pat Symonds was keen to rubbish the brake test rumors by showing pundits a print-out of Alonso's telemetry data.
McLaren team boss Ron Dennis, meanwhile, refused to point the finger at his former charge when he was asked about the incident immediately after the checkered flag.
Hamilton finished the race thirteenth, meaning that both Kimi Raikkonen and BMW's Nick Heidfeld overtake him in the drivers' classification.
McLaren also lost the lead of the constructors' championship, but Hamilton was not among those who openly wondered about Alonso's driving.
"I have no idea. I was behind him, I went to move to the right and he went to move to the right as well and I ended up on the back somehow. It's racing," he said.
Hamilton, 23, said he blamed himself for his poor finishing position, triggered by his loss of seven places with a mistake at the start.
"It was a very poor performance and I sort of let the team down today," the Briton added.
04/06/08 Fernando Alonso has refused to make too much of his run-in with Lewis Hamilton in the opening stages of Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix.
Having dropped to ninth place on the opening lap of the race at Sakhir, Hamilton crashed his McLaren-Mercedes into the back of Alonso's Renault, damaging the Spaniard's rear wing.
Hamilton was forced to pit and never really recovered, eventually finishing the race in 13th place.
With the pair's bitter relationship last season at McLaren doubtless at the forefront of minds, there have already been suggestions that Alonso brake-tested his former teammate. It sure looked that way on TV given the closing rate between the Renault and the McLaren as they accelerated out of the corner. Somehow we see Alonso getting a big chuckle out of that move.
But, after finishing 10th in the race, Alonso said he did not see anything sinister about the incident.
"The McLaren was just a lot faster than my car and he crashed into me," the double world champion told Spanish network Telecinco.