Honda has said there is no data to show anything went wrong with Alonso’s engine after he retired from the Belgium Grand Prix.
After suffering a torrid race with cars passing him left right and centre Alonso got very frustrated and came over the radio multiple times to complain about the situation.
The messages included “embarrassing, really embarrassing” and “This is just a test” as well as Alonso telling his engineering not use the radio for the rest of the race.
After being told there was no chance of rain, which could have given the team a chance of some points, Alonso came into the pits saying there were problems with the engine.
And despite there being no proof of anything untoward the team decided to retire the car anyway as a precaution.
But since there is still nothing in the data to suggest any problems rumours have started to spread that the Spaniard retired the car on purpose as a means of piling pressure on to Honda.
“He radioed in with what he thought was a problem with the car,” said Honda engine chief Yusuke Hasegawa.
“And although there was nothing showing in the data, we decided to stop the car as a precaution.”
Alonso, however, remained adamant that there was an issue which forced the retirement.
“For sure, is not easy to race like this,” he said.
“As you cannot have any good wheel-to-wheel battles. It was a difficult afternoon and we were not competitive in race trim.
“The car was too slow on the straights and it was impossible to have any battles out there, so points were also impossible today. Eventually, we had to stop due to an engine issue.”
