Fernando Alonso openly questions why his car appears to suffer more than its fair share of issues.

Sunday witnessed another determined performance from Fernando Alonso, however his quest for points was ended when he slowed up and pulled off track on the 69th lap. At the time he had been running in seventh, having been as high as fifth at one point.

"Unbelievable, mate. What a season, what a season," he moaned as he slowed to a crawl, moments after being passed by Daniel Ricciardo, who was now hunting down the Spaniard's teammate, Esteban Ocon.

Alonso's comment of "what a season" wasn't one of praise for his team however, rather one of questioning what is happening.

"For car 14, there is always reliability issues," he subsequently told reporters. "With 20 laps to the end I lost one cylinder, so I was running with five cylinders, 20% less power. I was 20 seconds in front of the McLarens and my team mate.

"I think the race until that point it was exceptional," he said of his own performance. "Austin and here I rate my best two races in terms of pace.

"It was better when we blew up at the end like this, we stopped the car and we stop doing those laps," he added.

An engine issue in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was followed by an early retirement at Imola due to accident damage. There were back-to-back retirements at Monza and Singapore due to a lack of water pressure and engine, with yesterday's issue meaning the two-time world champion has only completed 87% of the season's 1,165 laps.

Though he has out-qualified his teammate 11-8, Ocon has suffered just two DNFs, which is why Alonso points to the Frenchman's 11-point advantage.

"I lost 60 points this year," says the Spaniard, "so we add another six, so it's around 66. And obviously all the others they benefit, so everyone scores two more than what they should.

"It's just amazing that only one or two cars retire at every race and it's always car 14," he added. "I blew up five engines I think this year, the problem in Australia in the qualifying, in Austria I didn't even start a race because it was a black-out.

"So I think it's in 19 races, more or less 50% of the races, we didn't score the points we deserved. But nothing we can do now."

In fact, other than the four retirements mentioned, Alonso has only finished outside the points on five occasions, meaning that there have been 13 finishes in the points, from 20 races.

Nonetheless, the Spaniard, who is on his 7th ICE of the year, as are Leclerc, Ocon, Tsunoda and Bottas, compares this season's reliability to Honda's disastrous first year back with McLaren in 2015.

"In the first year of Honda we had like 72 places penalty at the end of the year, something like that, but the thing in Honda is that the both cars were stopping. This year there's only car 14 stopping.

"The engine cannot finish the races," he continued. "It cannot be bad luck when you have to change six or seven engines as we did and we're still not finishing in the races.

"I think they have some job to do next winter, hopefully not too much, and let's see," added the Spaniard, who is off to join (Mercedes-powered) Aston Martin.

Check out our Sunday gallery from Mexico City here.

LATEST NEWS

more news >

LATEST IMAGES

galleries >

Click to go to the main galleries section

READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by kenji, 01/11/2022 23:15

"I simply cannot understand the continual boring negative comments that Alonso attracts. Sure, he is outspoken, so what? Yes he riles some people but when he makes a point he's usually spot on, it's just that some people don't like hearing the truth. Alonso is one of the very best and he always gives the race everything he has in his 'tank'. I enjoy his commitment, his talent and his 'cojones' above all. He's not my favourite driver but who cares, it's track action that really counts and Alonso provides just that...everything else is just background static."

Rating: Negative (-1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

2. Posted by Great_white_shark, 01/11/2022 20:19

"The guy loves burning bridges. He is lucky the midfield teams still want to employ him. "

Rating: Positive (3) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

3. Posted by Defiant, 31/10/2022 21:52

"oh when did old Teflonso climb out of the woodwork? I'd been enjoying the head down Alonso but I guess when he's under pressure the old one creeps out."

Rating: Negative (-1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

"It's always car 14 (that retires)," says Alonso

LATEST NEWS

RELATED ARTICLES

LATEST IMAGES

POST A COMMENT

Post your comment

READERS COMMENTS

Share this page