Alonso says Hamilton is "one of F1's greatest champions"

The retiring Fernando Alonso has heaped his admiration on his former team-mate Lewis Hamilton, claiming he is "one of the greatest champions" that Formula One has ever seen.

The duo drove together back in 2007 at McLaren; with the pair suffering a difficult relationship during Hamilton's rookie season.

With Lewis set to win his fifth world championship title, with the possibility of doing it this weekend, Alonso said that it became very obvious, very quickly, that the now Mercedes driver, would become one of the 'greats'.

"Probably at that time, it was difficult to imagine what the future could bring for Lewis and any of the guys on the grid," Alonso said during Thursday's FIA press conference.

"But definitely he showed the talent from day one, fighting for the championship in his rookie year, winning in 2008. Probably at the time, we all agreed that five or seven world championships would be possible (for Lewis).

"Then obviously he was a little bit down due to the performance of the car for a couple of years. Switching to Mercedes, maybe at the time we were all thinking thta maybe that was not positive because at that time, Mercedes was struggling, 2013 and things like that. It's up and down.

"I'm happy for him because he showed the talent from day one. He was able to win races when the car was there to win it but he was able to win races in some of the seasons that the car was not in the top of form like 2009 and things like that, he was still winning a couple of grands prix a year. It's impressive and it's now time to enjoy for him, so I'm happy."

Alonso was then quizzed on his five best world champions of all time, and interestingly, the McLaren driver had no place for Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.

Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Juan Manuel Fangio, along with Hamilton, completed Alonso's five greatest.