McLaren revealed a software command issue cut the engine on Fernando Alonso's car at the Spanish Grand Prix and forced him to retire from the race.

Alonso was running 12th when he suffered the problem but looked capable of finishing in the points behind teammate Jenson Button. It was McLaren's second retirement of the year with an engine issue and Honda engine boss Yusuke Hasegawa explained that it was down to a software glitch.

"Fernando's retirement was caused by a software command issue that stopped the ICE [Internal Combustion Engine]," he said. "We think that the power unit as a whole is not damaged from this incident, but we will continue to investigate the effects of this stop. Obviously we will work with the team to see how this kind of situation can be avoided in the races going forward."

Alonso was disappointed to miss out on the opportunity to score points after Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided and retired on the opening lap, but said his race had been compromised from the start.

"With the two Mercedes out normally it is a good chance to score points and we missed it today," he said. "We lost everything on the start, we didn't manage to do a good pull away and then I had traffic in front of me all the race long and probably I didn't show my pace but it's the way it is.

"It's true that a couple of laps before we stopped that there were some sensors failing and I had some messages from the team, from the pit wall and we were managing the problem somehow and in the end was not possible anymore.

"Also we had a clutch problem yesterday night so the launch was not good, I lost a couple of places. This was the end of my race, probably the first corner."