Did Alonso retire himself from Azerbaijan Grand Prix?

Fernando Alonso recorded his sixth DNF of the season at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. This one appeared to come on his own terms.

An Aston Martin team radio exchange between Alonso and his race engineer Andrew Vizard led to the Spaniard declaring, “I think we will box at the end of this lap. I’m sorry.” Alonso pointed to an “engine problem,” one which he says Aston Martin and Honda must investigate to uncover the cause. Alonso also called for more from both sides.

Fernando Alonso claims ‘anomalous’ engine issue in Baku

Alonso’s Aston Martin was the sole remaining AMR26 in the race, after Lance Stroll had earlier parked his car with a suspected water pressure issue.

By Lap 20, Alonso was boxing to retire from the Grand Prix.

And of his own initiative, it would seem.

Amid some pass and repass action with the Cadillac of Valtteri Bottas, he could be heard stating multiple times over the radio that he believed to be suffering from an engine problem.

Vizard advises some engine mode changes, but after the latest call, tells the two-time world champion: “We are checking Fernando, but nothing we can do at the moment.”

Alonso replied: “Yeah, but I think we will box at the end of this lap. I’m sorry.”

He followed through on that, entering the pit lane to retire the car.

Following the race, Alonso shed more light on what he was feeling in the AMR26. He urged a deeper look into the issue.

“I passed the Cadillacs, Sergio [Perez] overtook me and then he pulled away. Then I was fighting with Valtteri for a few laps,” Alonso told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets.

“I think we passed and repassed like five or six times, and at the end we had to stop. We suspect an engine problem. We had a lack of speed on the straight, that it was anomalous. We have to study and see why.”

Told that Stroll had retired the sister Aston Martin due to an apparent water pressure gremlin, Alonso was asked if he could have been suffering the same problem.

“Could be. I didn’t see any alarm. Everything was working fine.

“But I started losing a lot on the straight, like 1.5 seconds. So it was, as I said, something anomalous.”

Optimism had emerged for Aston Martin across the Hungary and Zandvoort rounds, sparked by the major chassis and Honda engine upgrades.

Such momentum has slowed as reliability wobbles return. Two double retirements in the last three rounds have been recorded.

Alonso acknowledged that “there are things out of our hands. We are working to solve the problems.”

But, he also stressed that “we need to do better as a team in Malaysia and Singapore.”

That request stretches to the Honda power unit, also.

“I think we are doing our part of the job, which is helping the team to try to understand how to get faster on the corners,” said Alonso of he and teammate Stroll.

“When we press the throttle pedal and we go on the straight, we need to rely on Honda and getting better and better.

“We did a step forward this year with the engine upgrade, but obviously, as we see, there is not enough, and we need to keep on working.”

Latest Azerbaijan GP talking points via PlanetF1.com

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Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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