Alonso: Reliability seems to have made a step backwards

McLaren's misery has been compounded since the summer break at the high-speed venues, at Monza they endured another painful weekend which offered a glimmer of hope by Alonso wrestling the orange car from 13th on the grid up to 10th before he was forced to park.

Speaking after yet another DNF, Alonso said, "I think it's a shame because sometimes we were in the points, like we were in this grand prix, and the reliability of the team seems to have made a step backwards and we definitely need to improve that for the remainder of the season."

"We had a problem in an electrical part or something because the car was misfiring in Turn 7 and 8, so I had no power in those corners. Suddenly the car switched off and I came into the pitlane," lamented Alonso who a week earlier crashed out of the Belgian Grand Prix on the first lap.

He added, "It was two circuits where we didn't know if we should penalise or not, changing the engine, starting last and expect not to be very competitive. But we were better than expected - we were already in the points on lap five or six, and that's why we didn't change the engine and in both races we had to retire very early."

"Now we'll have to change the engine in the next races so on top of these two zeroes, there are more to come. I hope not because in Singapore if you start last, you finish last, so we'll have to stretch it as much as possible," added Alonso who will quit Formula 1 at the end of this season.