Fernando Alonso frustrated by Alpine's double failure at Singapore Grand Prix
Fernando Alonso was left frustrated after a double DNF for Alpine at the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday, which allowed McLaren to get ahead of them in the Formula 1 constructors' standings.
The race began with Alpine sitting fourth in the constructors' standings with an 18-point lead over McLaren, but they ended up leaving Singapore trailing by five points and in fifth place.
McLaren's Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo claimed fourth and fifth place in Sunday's race, while Alonso, in his record 350th start, and team-mate Esteban Ocon retired on 21 and 27 laps respectively with suspected power unit issues.
In an interview afterwards on Sunday, Alonso explained his frustrations at losing 'unacceptable' points this year, and said: "I think I was around minus 50, so now we add another eight so it is minus 58 or minus 60 in a year which is unacceptable on my car, on car 14.
"If you put me 60 points more in the standings and you reduce obviously 10 or something from the others, because you take points from the others as well, my championship would look much better and close even to the Mercedes," Alonso said.
"That probably is more accurate of the performance that we have put in this year of which I am very proud, even today. Another top five, top six we were fighting for.
"But the standings don't translate the true performance."
We leave Singapore with a double DNF. A disappointing end to a tough week.#SingaporeGP pic.twitter.com/bUXpavo28H
ā BWT Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) October 2, 2022
Alonso added that he was expecting to suffer a race demotion for power unit penalties at Japan this upcoming weekend, like he did in Spain and Austria.
"I think the engine mileage is okay. Esteban had the problem today and he has a newer engine, so I don't think this is down to that," Alonso said.
"I will have to put a new engine in at the next few races and we will see when. More points that we will lose."