Monaco Grand Prix – McLaren’s Fernando Alonso retired from a points position in Monte Carlo, pulling over with a transmission problem.
Alonso had been running in P7, having held his position from the start of the race, when his car slowed going down the main straight. Radioing in to report the problem, he was told to pull over and stop the car and he did so at Ste. Devote.
Hopping out and returning to the pitlane, a sweaty Alonso quickly said that the race was nothing to write home about: “It was quite a boring race: I was cruising around in seventh position as there were barely any yellow flags or Safety Cars.”
Explaining his race ending problem, he said: “I’m obviously disappointed because this was our first retirement of the season today. 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.”