Fernando Alonso at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Thursday. The US Grand Prix is on Sunday. (AP)

Poor Fernando Alonso. The righteous indignation he expressed at the perceived bias shown by McLaren towards his teammate Lewis Hamilton will turn a deeper shade of purple at the news that his countrymen are just as partial to Formula One’s coming man.

Hamilton reported that while in New York, following his maiden victory in Canada, he was stopped in the streets of Manhattan by a holidaying couple, who said: “We are Spanish and we support you. I was quite surprised.” The laughter as the 22-year-old relayed the tale was the symbolic sound of water rolling off a duck’s back.

Alonso’s emotional response to Hamilton’s unblemished rise to the Formula One summit is in danger of undermining his world championship defence.

Uncharacteristic first corner lunges in Spain and Canada cost him dearly. He is seeing things that are not there, placing a construction on events that do not correspond to the truth.

He told Spanish reporters in Monaco that when Hamilton walks into the McLaren garage he is greeted by friends, when he arrives he sees only engineers.

Surely the responsibility rests with Alonso to set the parameters in the garage. The engineers take their lead from him.

Interestingly, Renault’s head of engineering, Pat Symonds, observed that Alonso inverts common practice when forging new relationships; rather than assume a level of trust in others until proven wrong, Alonso’s default mechanism is to hold back until trust is proven.

Alonso needs to develop a coping strategy quickly or risk falling further behind. Hamilton is fazed by nothing. Despite the dizzying rate of progress, his feet remain glued to terra firma.