The Spaniard, running in 11th place with five laps to go, asked his team on the radio "Can I stop now?", leading to suggestions that he wanted to retire the car after a difficult day.

However, after the race Alonso clarified that he wanted to make a final pitstop to "enjoy" the final laps of the race, as he was struggling with his tyres.

"We were out of the points and obviously I had like 55 laps already with that set of tyres so it was quite difficult to keep it on the track," said Alonso.

"And maybe we had the possibility to do a free stop without losing any points and to be a little bit quicker and enjoy the last laps, but it was a little bit of a risk because we could maybe get a point."

Alonso went on to finish in 11th and out of the points, and he admitted McLaren had simply not been strong enough.

"We have to improve the pace, because today we were not good enough. We knew it would be a complicated circuit," he said.

"It was a tough race today. We didn't have the pace to be competitive, but we tried our best and we'll try to improve in the next race.

Alonso, who lost several places during a slow first pitstop, said it had been a very boring race for him.

"We had a problem with the pitstop, when the lights weren't working. I lost several places, and when I saw myself in 14th I was sure there would be no safety car or anything, and indeed nothing happened, and it was the most boring race in the world."

The McLaren driver is also under no illusions for the next race in Baku, where he feels his team will struggle even more.

"Next week it could be even worse because it's very fast, so we'll try to improve."