Fernando Alonso felt it was a missed opportunity to score points at the Circuit of The Americas on Sunday after retiring from the United States Grand Prix with another engine-related issue on Sunday.
The McLaren Honda Formula 1 Team racer, who has only scored points twice in 2017 with just three races of the season remaining, was running eighth when he slowed on track and pulled into the pit lane to retire, the tenth time this season where the Spaniard failed to see the chequered flag.
With Felipe Massa yet to stop, Alonso was on course for a seventh place finish, but the Spaniard felt it was painful to drop more points in the championship, with McLaren stuck down in ninth place, twenty points behind the Haas F1 Team.
“Today I think we really deserved to collect some points,” said Alonso. “We did a good qualifying, a good race, and made a good start, but with no reward. From our side I think it was an amazing performance.
“On the straight I lost power – I felt some vibrations in the engine and some really weird things were going on. It’s such a pity. In the last few races we have lost so many points – possibly 15 or 20 – which probably could have helped our position in the championship for myself and also the team. It’s painful, especially because today we were seventh on merit and we had fought for that.
“There are only three races remaining and we really want to do well, because the boys in the garage work really hard day and night to prepare the cars properly. Even this morning they had to change Stoffel’s engine and both crews were working together on that, then they prepared for the race and performed some perfect pitstops.
“Today really was a missed opportunity.”
