Alonso’s one-word verdict on his Italian GP as he counts the cost

Summing up his Italian Grand Prix in just one word after he retired with a suspension failure, Fernando Alonso said it was “2025”.

This year’s championship has been a trying one for the double World Champion as it began with an eight-race run outside of the points, his engine failure in Monaco marking the last of those.

A suspension failure cost Fernando Alonso a top ten result

Alonso and Aston Martin rebounded as the Spaniard scored points in six of the next seven races, his performances belying his position as the oldest driver on the Formula 1 grid.

Scoring a season-high fifth place in Hungary, Alonso and his teammate Lance Stroll elevated Aston Martin to sixth in the Constructors’ Championship.

However, the team’s chance of building on Alonso’s eighth place in qualifying at the Italian Grand Prix and putting distance between itself and Racing Bulls ended with a suspension failure.

On lap 25, Alonso’s race suddenly ended when he suffered a front-right suspension failure as he exited Ascari and ran over the kerbs. He was able to return to the pits but parked the car, lamenting “suspension failure, this is unbelievable”.

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“The suspension seems to have broken and we had to retire,” he explained to DAZN.

“It’s a kerb we had been using all weekend and that cars are still using in the race, so we’ll have to analyse what happened.”

It was a costly failure as the 44-year-old was fighting for seventh place in the grand prix when his race came to a premature conclusion.

That, together with his engine failure in Monaco when he was running up in sixth, has cost the Spaniard 14 points this season.

“Six. Exactly six,” he said of his lost Monza points. “I was seventh. I don’t think many cars could have overtaken us. We were just as fast or faster than them.

“Six points here, eight points in Monaco when I was sixth and we broke the engine… today when we were seventh the suspension broke.

“That’s points bad luck is taking away from us.

“But there’s nothing we can do on our side. We overtook one car at the start, another in the pits… We were holding a group behind with a difficult weekend. We executed the weekend 100 per cent and once again luck takes the points away, but we’ll have to keep trying.”

Aston Martin is a solitary point ahead of Racing Bulls with Sauber a further six off the pace.

“We don’t have any aspirations this year, simply fighting in the Constructors’ Championship, trying to help the team finish as high as possible,” said Alonso.

“But on merit I think we should have 20 more points than we do.

“If we haven’t scored them it’s been because of our mistakes or bad luck. We’ll finish the year where we have to finish.

“Beyond that there’s neither positive nor negative to take. We try to do the job perfectly every weekend and from there move on to the next one.”

Asked to describe his Italian Grand Prix, he summed it up in one telling word: “2025.”

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