Losing the feeling in his hands and feet due to engine vibrations, Fernando Alonso felt no need to finish Chinese Grand Prix.

Another brilliant start saw the Spaniard up to tenth by the end of the opening lap, but, as was the case in Melbourne, the end result was inevitable.

On the second lap the struggling, two-time world champion lost three places and another five at the restart following the Safety Car period.

Apart from all the other issues facing the AMR26 package, the vibrations from the Honda engine are causing great physical discomfort to its drivers.

Retiring from last position on Lap 32 with a battery related issue, onboard shots showed the Spaniard taking his hands off the wheel in a bid to ease the discomfort from the vibrations.

"I could not probably finish the race anyway," he told reporters at race end. "The vibration level was very high today. At one point, from lap 20 to 33, I was struggling a little bit to feel my hands and my feet. We were one lap behind, we were last. It was probably no point to keep on going."

Asked if it felt better than Melbourne, where he endured 21 laps, he said: "It was worse today than any other session in the weekend, to be honest. For whatever reason, I don't know.

"Some of the steps we did were achieved artificially," he added. "I mean, just lowering the RPM of the engine and things like that, so everything vibrates less.

"But in the race, obviously, you still need to go high in some of the RPM when you make an overtake move, or when you have to recharge or something like that. Over time, it's more difficult. It's more demanding."

"It was a discomfort," confirmed Mike Krack. "We've done 33 laps, which we have never done in a row, so I think it's a new learning," he added.

"Over the weekend I think we did 19 in the sprint, and obviously in between you always have a break. I think he also said that if you fight for the win, it is possible to drive longer.

"We were not in a very strong position at that point, so it was a decision that was quite easy to make," he said of Alonso's retirement.

"We had some additional countermeasures here, compared to Melbourne," he confirmed, "and the work is continuing, and it's in all areas.

"Now I have to say we have not had any other issues related to that, other than the driver stopping the race, we have not had bits falling off or anything like that, which can happen as well.

"So I think from that point of view we need to keep working, we need to increase the reliability of the whole package, and then we need to work on the performance as well."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Shanghai here.