Fernando Alonso described his retirement from seventh place in the Monaco Grand Prix as “painful“, before going on to say that he and the McLaren F1 Team deserved seventh place based on their pace.
Alonso made it to lap fifty-three of the seventy-eight lap race before his Renault engine gave in – first suffering a loss of power, then sticking in gear. Whilst his wasn’t the only Renault engine to lose power – race-winner Daniel Ricciardo lost the MGU-K of his Renault engine with fifty laps to go – Alonso was the only car to retire due to non crash-related issues, as Ricciardo was able to bring the car home.
This failure to finish marked the first non-points finish of the season for Alonso, whose strong finishes have placed him in seventh in the Driver’s Championship.
Speaking after the race, the Spaniard said that McLaren were the fourth fastest around the circuit – behind Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, Scuderia Ferrari and Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport – and that this meant they deserved the seventh place.
“It was quite a boring race: I was cruising around in seventh position as there were barely any yellow flags or Safety Cars,” said Alonso.
“I’m obviously disappointed because this was our first retirement of the season today. First, I felt a loss of power and then I was somehow stuck in fifth gear. It’s painful because we had seventh place in the bag.
“We were the fourth fastest car around here this weekend, and seventh in the race is what we would have deserved. There’s nothing we can do about it now, but we obviously need to improve our reliability for the forthcoming races.”
