Fernando Alonso struggled to find a motif of satisfaction after his retirement from Sunday's Monaco Grand prix, labeling his afternoon of racing as perhaps the most boring ever.
The McLaren driver appeared to be settling into a sixth consecutive - albeit uneventful - finish in 2018, running P7 for much of the race when a sudden gearbox problem put him out of contention after 52 laps.
The Spaniard had no other choice but to park his MCL33 down the escape road at Ste Devote and call it a day. A very boring day, according to the two-time world champion.
"Extremely boring. I mean, this is probably the most boring race ever" Alonso said in the aftermath of his retirement, lamenting the depressing spectacle endured by the fans.
"Without a safety car, without yellow flags, I think the sport needs to think a little bit about the show because this is very disappointing.
"Probably the most boring race ever in Formula 1.
"So I think we probably need to give something to the fans at the end of the race just to pay the ticket back a little."
Alonso was understandably frustrated by his demise, as he hoped to keep his 100 percent reliability record intact.
"I’m obviously disappointed because this was our first retirement of the season today," he said.
"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."
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