A Mercedes PU failure ensured that Fernando Alonso failed to finish the Monaco GP, thus extending the Spaniard’s pointless streak in 2025 to eight races.
He qualified an encouraging seventh and gained a spot from a penalty for Lewis Hamilton, but from early in the race he suffered with a loss of power.
At pretty much any other track he would have been forced to stop, but at Monaco he could keep going at his own pace. He was still in P6 when it became impossible for him to continue and he pulled off the track.
Despite the obvious frustration at missing the points yet again he shrugged it off – and made a point about his longer term ambitions.
“Well to be honest, 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, Canada. To score eight points this year or 22, it doesn’t change much.
“While next year with a change of regulation, we really hope to be a contender for the championship. So I’m happy to accumulate all the DNFs this year.”
He made it clear that he’d been managing an issue from early in the race.
“I had the problem with the engine since lap 15,” he said when I asked about his race. “I didn’t have the ERS system, the electrical part. So I think I would like Danny Ric in 2017, with no electrical part, so I had 160 horsepower less.
“But here in Monaco, power was not crucial, so I kept the time lap reasonable. And I think, yeah, I was dreaming to keep the P6 at the end, maybe, if it was not possible. But yeah, race was good. In my case qualifying was very good yesterday, so we lost an opportunity today.”
At one point his frustration was obvious on the radio.
“I mean, when you don’t have the proper power, and yeah, 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 came from the sky and hit our car, or a wrong own safety car today.
“Our engine was not well prepared into 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 races.”
So were there any positives to be taken from the Monaco weekend? Most definitely.
“That I’m performing at very high level,” he said. “Obviously you never have self-doubt when you are a Formula One driver.
“But it’s true that from time to time to have a nice result is always welcome, and it put you a smile. And you go tomorrow to the gym, and you are a little bit more motivated, and you have some good news.
“In my case, there is no good news, so I need to keep going tomorrow morning to the gym, and I need to keep performing well. And that’s what I take. Monaco is a very special, very specific place, mega laps in qualifying, good laps now in the race, even without the ERS system.
“And if I had no points because the slow pace, or contacts with other cars or touching the wall or whatever, because of my mistakes, I would be very frustrated, but I feel the opposite. I feel performing very high level, so I feel relaxed, and waiting for an opportunity.”
Adam Cooper F1 