Tough to see Fernando Alonso 'let it rip' with car issues, says former F1 world champion

Former F1 world champion and Fernando Alonso's former teammate Jenson Button has said that it was tough to see the Spaniard's struggles with Alpine's reliability issues this season.

Alonso's driving has been spectacular on occasions, but the driver has suffered massively with reliability issues. At the Mexican GP last week, the Spaniard was having a comfortable race at the head of the midfield, but a late race power unit issue derailed things and forced a DNF.

Alonso was livid after the race as he threw his gloves after getting off the car.

Button, Alonso's teammate during the infamous McLaren-Honda stint, said on Sky Sports F1’s Any Driven Monday about Alonso's issues with his car:

"It’s a tricky one. Fernando seemed very positive on the radio when he came in for his tyre stop, the team were like ‘let’s go for the hard, it seems to be working’ and Fernando was like ‘yeah, let’s do it’. And he seemed really up for the challenge. So it’s amazing how quickly you can shift from having a great race to suddenly disaster, and he had an issue with his power unit and then it finally let go coming into Turn 1 once he had already been overtaken by a couple of people and one being his team-mate (Esteban Ocon), which you never like as a driver. So a toughie for Fernando and on the radio, he was a calm Fernando compared to what we’ve seen before – but then he let it rip when he got out of the car.”

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Fernando Alonso will make Aston Martin competitive

Jenson Button has said that it's tough to see a driver of Alonso's caliber face reliability issues. The former McLaren driver also added that Alonso's presence at Aston Martin would make make car more competitive. He said:

“It’s tough to see from a driver of his calibre having all these issues when he’s driving still at his best at 41 years old. He’s such a talent still, Fernando. He’s got so much passion and so much love for this sport, as you see from his emotion. It’s tough to see him in this situation. I’m sure he’s hoping next year he can find a package that’s more reliable, first of all, and then he can sprinkle a bit of fairy dust, which I’m sure he will, to make the (Aston Martin) car competitive.”

Alonso will move to Aston Martin from Alpine at the end of this season. It will be interesting to see how the Alonso/Stroll partnership fares compared to the Alonso/Ocon partnership at Alpine this season.