The row between Hamilton and Alonso has dominated the season

The team held clear-the-air talks before this weekend's Turkish Grand Prix after their rivalry spilled out in public at the last race in Hungary.

"We're extremely competitive. We can't be best friends," said Hamilton.

"I apologised, he apologised and we said 'Let's just get it over with and get on with the rest of the year'."

The British driver, who leads the F1 title race in a dream first season, admitted: "After the last race, everything looked as bad as it could be.

"But we were not in a war. We met up had a good conversation we just discussed where we can go from here.

We had a really constructive meeting. Fernando said he had no problems with me and I said the same. Lewis Hamilton

"The fact is we get on well," Hamilton added. "But we can't be best friends."

Alonso was more circumspect when asked about the situation, saying: "I have a long-term contract with McLaren and at the moment I am not in any hurry to move."

With six races to go, Hamilton, 22, leads the Spanish double world champion by seven points in the drivers' championship.

Despite Hamilton being a newcomer, team chief Ron Dennis has stuck to a policy of treating both drivers equally, rather than having a number one and two.

This caused friction, and their already strained relationship reached a new low in Hungary, where they ended the weekend not on speaking terms.

Alonso qualified fastest but was stripped of pole position and demoted five places on the grid for impeding Hamilton in qualifying, in reaction to Hamilton ignoring team orders to let Alonso by earlier in the session.

Clearly they are very competitive individuals and we believe that for the balance of the season that competitiveness will stay on the circuit Ron Dennis

The English driver went on to win the race.

This prompted Dennis to call a summit meeting in Istanbul, which he did not attend.

"We are leading both championships, and it's tough to have such a difficult situation - albeit such a positive one - but we just have to do our job," said Dennis.

"The important thing is everybody recognised what their contribution was to the difficult circumstances we had after Hungary and were committed not to allow those things to repeat themselves in the future races.

"Clearly they are very competitive individuals and we believe that for the balance of the season that competitiveness will stay on the circuit. That's our objective.

"From the team perspective we will rigidly stick to equality. Sometimes it's difficult to achieve.

606: DEBATE All that Hamilton has done is display consummate skill and ability in his first season in F1, and in doing so he has unnerved his team-mate HOMH

"We have a very focused effort on the remaining Grands Prix, and as and if, and we hope it's if, any situations develop then we will handle those as they develop."

Meanwhile, David Coulthard is backing Dennis to resolve the row between Hamilton and Alonso.

Red Bull star Coulthard, who spent nine seasons at McLaren, said: "Ron is as experienced as any team principal to deal with what happened.

"I remember watching Prost and Senna, and I am sure (feuds) happened with other McLaren drivers before them."