Fernando Alonso is downbeat about his chances of a competitive Monaco Grand Prix after stopping during Q2.
With McLaren looking capable of reaching Q3, Alonso had yet to set a time in the second part of qualifying when he pulled off to the inside of the track at Ste Devote. While the problem has yet to be confirmed, Alonso believes it was an electrical issue and says there is little hope of salvaging a good result from the race.
“The problem I think is something electrical because the car completely switched off in the middle of the straight," Alonso said. "I had no power, no electricity, no light on the steering wheel, so something electrical.
"I don’t want to sound too pessimistic but this is the Monaco Grand Prix, so the race is Saturday. There is a train of cars on Sunday and we’re starting 15th, but hopefully we can get some experience, we can do some laps and to improve the performance and the reliability because we are too fragile at the moment."
While Alonso qualified 15th, he will actually start from P13 due to penalties for Romain Grosjean and Carlos Sainz. While that may lead to a chance of scoring points, Alonso says reliability is costing McLaren much stronger results.
"We were P3 and P6 this morning in FP3 when we had no traffic. Perhaps that is a bit optimistic, but sixth, seventh, eighth position we could fit both cars. Unfortunately we could not manage to deliver he result today. Next time we need to improve performance and reliability because we are a bit too fragile at the moment."
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