Reliability issues plagued McLaren Honda all weekend, the result of which was a disappointing race day at the United States Grand Prix that finished outside the points.
Although Fernando didn't incur any penalties before the race started like his teammate did, he wasn't exempt from reliability issues.
Like Stoffel, Fernando made a strong start, protecting the gap to the cars around him and showing solid pace up to and through the first round of pit stops.
Unfortunately, on lap 24 while running in eighth place (a net seventh as [Felipe] Massa hadn't pitted), he lost power โ later diagnosed as an MGU-H problem โ and was forced to retire the car.
โToday I think we really deserved to collect some points. We did a good qualifying, a good race, and made a good start, but with no reward. From our side I think it was an amazing performance,โ he said. โOn the straight I lost power โ I felt some vibrations in the engine and some really weird things were going on.โ
โIt's such a pity. In the last few races we have lost so many points โ possibly 15 or 20 โ which probably could have helped our position in the championship for myself and also the team. It's painful, especially because today we were seventh on merit and we had fought for that.โ
โThere are only three races remaining and we really want to do well, because the boys in the garage work really hard day and night to prepare the cars properly. Even this morning they had to change Stoffel's engine and both crews were working together on that, then they prepared for the race and performed some perfect pitstops. Today really was a missed opportunity.โ
