At the FIA press conference on Thursday, Fernando Alonso was asked if he thought he was treated fairly by his team in Japan, or whether it had favoured Lewis Hamilton my making "subtle changes" to the Spaniard's car, including tyre pressures or wing settings.

When the World Champion claimed that it was a "difficult question" and refused to answer, some thought this suggested that this was exactly what the Spaniard was thinking.

Speaking today, team boss Ron Dennis admitted that he was disappointed by his driver's response.

"Going into the Japanese Grand Prix Fernando was two points behind Lewis," he said. "I think the Grand Prix season so far, in respect of our two cars, their reliability, their competitiveness and the way that our team has conducted itself leaves nobody in Formula One with the view that we do anything other than provide equality to both of our drivers.

"There are numerous equality clauses in our contracts," he continued. "They are reciprocal in both drivers' contracts and it is a well known fact that we do not favour - even in very very difficult circumstances, even in the level of competitiveness and the spirit of competitiveness that sits between our drivers - we never will, never have and certainly are not favouring either driver at the moment.

"This is a straight fight and I'm obviously disappointed that someone who really has all the knowledge should not be more direct and open with the response which is: equality is how we run our team."