Mexico City Grand Prix

Angry Alonso put out of his misery by Alpine engine blow up

Alonso retired through yet another reliability failure

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Monday 31 October 2022 10:10

A frustrated Fernando Alonso has insisted it was better for him that his Alpine's Renault engine "blew up" to put him out of his Mexico City Grand Prix misery.

The two-time F1 champion was coasting to a best-of-the-rest finish in seventh after fending off Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas in the opening stint, before stretching his advantage to over 20 seconds over the chasing midfield pack.

But concerns were raised when Alonso began haemorrhaging time to his team-mate Esteban Ocon and both McLarens with 15 laps remaining before his power unit finally expired into turn one with six laps remaining.

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The Spanish driver only recently experienced an engine issue in Singapore where he claimed all of the team's reliability problems were on his side of the garage.

The 41-year-old's mood was not improved following this latest failure.

"For car 14, there are always reliability issues," said Alonso.

"Twenty laps to the end, I lost one cylinder so I was running on five cylinders, 20 percent less power.

"I was 20 seconds ahead of the McLarens and my team-mate so I think the race until that point was exceptional.

"Austin and here I rate my best two races in terms of pace. It was better when it blew up at the end, we stopped doing those laps."

Alonso adds up cost of consistent failures

A visibly angry Alonso flung his arms about in bewilderment after extracting himself from the A522, with his discontent growing more public since the announcement of his move to Aston Martin for next season.

"I had lost 60 points this year [before Mexico]," said Alonso. "We add another six so that's 66 and all the others benefit. They score two more than what they should.

"It is just amazing that only one or two cars retire in every race and it is always car 14.

"We blew up five engines this year; the problem in Australia in qualifying; in Austria, I didn't even start the race so I think in nine races, more or less 50 percent of the races we didn't score the points we deserve.

"Nothing we can do now."