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The need to save fuel in the closing stages of the German Grand Prix cost McLaren's Fernando Alonso his fourth points finish of the 2016 Formula 1 season.

Alonso was running in 10th place in the closing stages at Hockenheim, behind McLaren team-mate Jenson Button, as they both reeled in Williams driver Valtteri Bottas, who was struggling on soft tyres in a long stint.

While Button passed Bottas, which elevated him to eighth in the order, Alonso was passed by Sergio Perez and Esteban Gutierrez and finished 12th.

"We were 10th so hoping for this last point but in the end it wasn't possible," he said.

"We did not have the pace and in the race we had to save a lot of fuel in the last stint.

"It was one of the worst races of the year, this one.

"We knew before coming here and in the race it was no different.

"With no safety cars, no incidents we would have too much consumption and we were too slow on the straights."

Honda is set to bring a major upgrade to the next grand prix in Belgian after the summer break, and Alonso is hopeful it will help across the board.

"Obviously we have to do more fuel saving than the other cars so that's penalising us a little bit," he said.

"At Spa we have an update and hopefully that will give us some extra power and some extra performance."

As Button started to save fuel, Alonso closed to within 1.8 seconds, but the pair were separated by more than 17s at the flag.

Button admitted he had to balance his pursuit of Bottas with saving fuel, but that he and McLaren "judged it to perfection".

"It's always the great comment: 'You're catching the car in front very quickly but don't forget to save fuel'," he said.

"It's not something you want to hear but I'd saved enough in the previous lap so I was safe.

"I don't know if other people struggled around here but I think we struggled more than we expected.

"Maybe we're just quicker than expected, so I don't know."