Spaniard hits back at former team-mate, insisting if Hamilton had kept quiet the racist abuse in Barcelona would never have been an issue.

Fernando Alonso has suggested Lewis Hamilton brought the racist abuse he suffered in Spain earlier this month upon himself - after the Briton publicly slammed his former team-mate's behaviour at McLaren last year.

The pair endured a fractious and uncomfortable relationship at the Woking-based outfit, culminating in both missing out on the title by just a single point at season's end, and double world champion Alonso leaving two years before his three-year contract was up for renewal to return to former team Renault.

In a subsequent interview with the Associated Press last month, Hamilton claimed that Alonso had shown him "just how not to behave as a world champion", but after maintaining his silence the Spaniard has now hit back, claiming that his ex team-mate - the first black driver in the sport's history - should have expected the slurs and taunts he received from fans wearing dark make-up, black wigs and T-shirts saying 'Hamilton's Family' during testing at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.

"The very next week they whistled him in Spain for saying that," the 26-year-old told national radio station Cadena Ser, insisting that Hamilton had no right to say such a thing. "That's the other face of the situation. If you talk, it's normal that they whistle."

The episode - one that made headlines around the globe - is still being investigated by Formula 1's governing body, the FIA, and Alonso agreed that any such incidents must be heavily punished. He did, however, seek to downplay the issue somewhat, pointing to the reception he had received from fans in Monza after he triumphed in the Italian Grand Prix last year.

"If in the end it has been done, then you have to condemn it sharply," he agreed, "but when I did my lap of honour [in Monza] people were [making obscene gestures]. That's sport."

Asked how his relationship with Hamilton was now, meanwhile, Alonso sharply retorted: "The same as last year - non-existent."