McLaren deny favouring Alonso at Monaco

Alonso started the race carrying five laps less fuel than Hamilton, a decision that Dennis says was made as insurance against the possibility of a safety car.

"Everybody feels, I'm sure, that there is some favouritism or some penalisation that is given to Lewis or Fernando, but we are scrupulously fair at all times in how we run this Grand Prix team," said Dennis after the race.

"But this circuit inevitably has to be addressed in a team way, and I make no excuses for instructing the racing drivers to slow their pace after the first stop and effect our strategy based on probability of the safety car or other cars that could threaten us as a result of the safety car being deployed.

"This race is nothing about the drivers other than the necessity for them to drive really quickly and give us the opportunity to determine the outcome of the race. And that's my job.

"I don't like to slow drivers down, don't like them to be frustrated, don't like these things to happen, because I am an absolute racer.

"But that's what you have to do to win the Monaco GP and I'm not going to make any excuses for it."

He added: "There is a uniqueness about Monte Carlo - anybody that has some degree of sophistication in their ability to analyse previous Grands Prix at Monte Carlo and the strategy you need, knows that a single-stop strategy is a critical factor if the safety car is deployed.

"And it has been deployed four times in the previous five years. And if the safety car is not deployed, then the fastest way is a two-stop strategy. So you have to decide who will have the strategy to cover off the one-stop option and who is going to take a three-stop option."

Dennis's comments came after a slightly disgruntled-sounding Hamilton had pointed out that his car carried the number 2.

"At the end of the day, I'm a rookie," Hamilton said.  "I've come into my first season in Formula One and I have finished second in my first Monaco Grand Prix, so I really can't complain.

"To see that I'm at a similar pace to Fernando is a positive for me, but it's just something I have to live with. I have the number two on my car, and I am the number two driver."

Dennis responded that he understood his young charger's disappointment, but that Hamilton would have thought differently had the strategy played into his hands.

"I think he's understandably disappointed and frustrated," Dennis said. "He would not have been frustrated or disappointed if a safety car had been deployed and won the race.

"Time will tell - we do not favour anybody. There will be times and places when they are free to race, but this isn't one of them.

"Everybody in the pitlane and the media and would be saying, 'what an idiot the team principal from McLaren is for allowing his cars to compete, where one of them is in the barrier.'"

Dennis also defended his decisions today, saying they were not tantamount to team orders, which are banned in Formula One.

"Team strategy is what you bring to bear to win a Grand Prix. Team orders is what you bring to bear to manipulate a Grand Prix.

"And we do not and have not manipulated Grands Prix, unless there were some exceptional circumstances, which occurred, for example, in Australia [1998], when at that time someone had tapped into our radio and instructed Mika Hakkinen to enter the pits.

"He entered the pits and I reversed that, because that was unfair, that was an outside influence on the outcome of the race. That is one of the very rare occasions that there's been a team order.

"I don't feel uncomfortable with them. I sleep easy. I have a clear conscience, both on that particular race - and this race today."