Alonso "couldn't believe" failure after "sublime" performance

The McLaren driver was running in eighth position when he reported a lack of power from his Honda engine and was asked to drive back to the pits to retire.

It was Alonso's 10th retirement of 2017, making him the first McLaren driver with 10 DNFs in a season since Kimi Raikkonen in 2002.

While he admitted another problem was tough to digest, Alonso, who had qualified six tenths ahead of teammate Stoffel Vandoorne, said he was delighted with his own performance.

"I'm very happy with how the weekend went on a personal level. I think the level this weekend was sublime, both in qualifying and in the race," Alonso said.

"The championship standings don't reflect that. It doesn't change much for me to be 12th or 17th in the championship but on merit I think we should be a lot higher up."

The Spaniard added: "The engine was losing power and failing and I couldn't believe it. In Japan you start last, you are running 15th or 16th after the penalty and nothing happens, the engine works perfectly all race.

"Now you are running seventh and it starts to fail and you can't believe it."

Alonso is now expecting to be forced to use a new Honda engine in Mexico, where he predicts another tough weekend.

"I think the engine is broken and in Mexico there was a chance that we could try to change the engine there and be penalised in order to arrive in Brazil and Abu Dhabi with a fresher engine.

"Now it's basically certain we'll change the engine in Mexico and therefore another weekend where you start last and it will be complicated to score again.

Obviously all attention is placed on next year and in these three races I'd like to score points to improve in the standings and to help the team as well.

"But from the three races remaining in one we'll start last, so let's see if we can score in the other two."