"We don't have any aspirations this year," says two-time world champion following his fourth DNF of the year.

Crashing out of the season opener, the Spaniard suffered a brake issue in China, an engine failure in Monaco and a suspension failure in Monza, at just the time things appeared to be improving for the Silverstone-based outfit.

"It seems that the suspension gave way and we had to retire the car," he told DAZN at race end.

"We were seventh," he continued, clearly frustrated, "I don't think many cars had to overtake us, we were as fast or faster than them, so yes, six points... eight in Monaco when we were sixth and broke the engine there, today when we were seventh we broke the suspension, so it's dozens of points that bad luck is taking away from us.

"We overtook one car at the start, we overtook one car at the pitstop, in the pits, and we were keeping a group behind us," he sighed. "I think with a difficult weekend, so for our part I think we executed the weekend one hundred per cent, and luck again, or a breakdown, deprived us of points, but we'll have to keep trying.

"We don't have any aspirations this year," he admitted, "other than to fight for the Constructors' Championship and try to help the team finish as high as possible.

"But on merit, I think we should have about twenty points more than we have, so if we haven't achieved that, it's sometimes been because of our own mistakes, other times because of bad luck, and at the end of the year, we'll finish where we have to finish.

"Other than that, there's nothing negative or positive to take away from it. We try to do our job perfectly every weekend, and as we did this weekend, I would say, with a spectacular qualifying session and a very good first thirty laps of the race, and from there we'll wait for the next one."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Monza here.