Fernando Alonso was forced to retire halfway through the Monaco Grand Prix, following a mechanical failure on his Aston Martin.

Running in sixth place, Alonso pulled off the track at La Rascasse on Lap 37 after suffering an engine issue that had plagued him for several laps prior.

Fernando Alonso: I was dreaming of keeping P6

Having already got one of his two pitstops out of the way by coming in for a second set of hard tyres on Lap 16, Alonso’s race came to a premature end on Lap 37 to resign the Spaniard to another race without a points finish.

But the issues that ended his race had actually started quite a while beforehand, with Aston Martin team boss Andy Cowell revealing Alonso had lost the full use of his Energy Recovery System (ERS) during the Grand Prix – an issue that sapped him of a considerable amount of horsepower.

Theoretically, this figure would be around 160 horsepower if the full deployment was lost, although Cowell was reluctant to confirm the exact amount of horsepower Alonso was missing.

Daniel Ricciardo won the 2018 edition of the Monaco Grand Prix with a similar failure on his Red Bull, with the unique characteristics of the Monte Carlo circuit meaning that he could circulate with those behind him unable to overtake.

It was a similar story for Alonso, who was able to keep driving a few seconds off the pace but maintained his sixth place until the engine gave up entirely.

The timing charts show that Alonso set his best laptime on Lap 15, 1:15.5, and, with the problem seeming to kick in shortly after his first pitstop, spent the last 15 laps of his race circulating in the 1:16s and 1:17s, some two-three seconds off the pace of the frontrunners.

“I had a problem with the engine since Lap 15 (sic), I didn’t have the ERS system, the electrical part,” Alonso told media, including PlanetF1.com, afterwards.

“So I think I was like Daniel Ricciardo in 2017 (sic) with no electrical part. So I had 160 horsepower less.

“But, here in Monaco, power was not crucial, so I kept the laptime reasonable, and I think I was dreaming of keeping the P6 at the end, maybe, but it was not possible.

“But yeah, the race was good in my case. Qualifying was very good yesterday, so we lost an opportunity today.”

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Monaco marks a third of the season now elapsed, with Alonso one of four drivers yet to score in the eight race weekends held so far this year. Luck hasn’t been on his side, such as an unfortunately timed VSC and Safety Car at Imola that cost him a clear shot at points.

But Alonso wasn’t pointed at external factors as being the cause of his Monaco misfortunes, saying, “When you don’t have the proper power and everything seems to be on the wrong foot again. On the race start, it was bad, but today is not bad luck.

“It’s not something that came from the sky and hit our car. We were our own Safety Car today, our engine was not well prepared for the race, and we could not finish.

“So let’s try to investigate that and make sure that it’s not happening in the next race.”

Cowell, who previously headed up Mercedes’ High-Performance Powertrains in his previous F1 role several years ago, said there was constant communication with HPP as Alonso’s engine struggled on, and Aston Martin had the all-clear to keep pushing on in the Grand Prix after the issue kicked in on Lap 21.

“HPP were good. They said [to] keep running. See if we can diagnose it, we were in the points. So they were supportive. They’ll take it and they’ll investigate it and feed back,” he said.

“It’s an incredibly hard track to overtake on so, even if you’ve got a five-cylinder engine, you can still keep somebody back, and you can play games to help your teammate out.

Cowell’s input in the first few years of Mercedes’ hybrid power unit was huge, but the British engineer smiled when asked about how he felt about the recent issues that have affected Mercedes-powered cars such as Alonso’s issue, and Kimi Antonelli’s throttle problem at Imola last week.

“It’s a long time since I was working at Mercedes. I’m not sure I was ever the father of the engine!” he said.

“It’s a team sport, and everybody contributes to what goes racing. HPP will take the bits away. They’re already looking at the data.

“They’ll do a forensic strip-down of the engine, maybe run some of the bits on test rigs, diagnose what the issue is, and feed back to us what the issue is and what the containment is for the next race in parts and so on. So I’ve no doubt that they’ll do that thoroughly.”

While the immediate frustration of the retirement was evident as Alonso’s current misfortunes continue, the two-time F1 World Champion was circumspect about taking in all the bad luck in a season in which genuine opportunities for success are few and far between.

“I will be happy if everything goes like this the whole season and I win in Australia next year,” he said.

“For me, it doesn’t change really, to finish P8 in Barcelona or Canada, you know, to score eight points this year, or 22, it doesn’t change much.

“While next year, with the change of regulation, we really hope to be a contender for the championship. So I’m happy to accumulate all the DNFs this year.”

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