Fernando Alonso's 'engine problem' claim rejected by Honda following Belgian Grand Prix retirement

Alonso retired on lap 26 with an 'engine problem' that has since been rejected by Honda

Fernando Alonso's claim that his McLaren had an 'engine problem' has been dismissed by Honda (Getty)

The relationship between Fernando Alonso and Honda has deteriorated significantly following the McLaren driver’s retirement from Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix after the engine supplier revealed there was no problem with his car.

Alonso cut a frustrated figure in the wake of Sunday’s race at Spa-Francorchamps, with his strong start quickly unravelling as a number of drivers passed the under-powered McLaren before his retirement on lap 26 with what he described as “an engine problem”.

But despite the Spaniard’s claims, Honda have clarified that they failed to find an issue with his engine, which adds to the speculation that Alonso simply gave up after being relegated from seventh to 12th.

“He radioed in with what he thought was a problem with the car, and although there was nothing showing in the data, we decided to stop the car as a precaution,” said Honda’s Formula One project chief Yusuke Hasegawa.

Alonso transmitted a number of radio messages to express his anger, the worst of which labelled McLaren’s performance “embarrassing, really embarrassing”. The 36-year-old also questioned if there was any rain scheduled to arrive at the track during the race in a sign of his frustration, given he did not believe the car was capable of competing with the rest of the grid in dry conditions.

“For sure, it's not easy to race like this, as you cannot have any good wheel-to-wheel battles," Alonso said. 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.

“Eventually, we had to stop due to an engine issue.”

Alonso retired on lap 26 (Getty)

His mood is unlikely to improve at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where he is likely to start at the back of the grid due to a planned engine upgrade by Honda. With driver’s at full throttle for more than 70 per cent of the lap at Monza, McLaren will need a significant improvement from their engine in order to avoid a repeat of the Spa debacle, though their raw speed from the much-maligned Honda engine is unlikely to challenge what the Mercedes, Ferrari or Renault engines can achieve.

There have been initial talks between McLaren and Renault about the French marque supplying power units to the Woking-based team, with managing director Cyril Abiteboul open to the idea of adding McLaren as one of its customers, though it would risk losing either Red Bull or Toro Rosso from its current roster.

“The situation is we have a multi-year contract with Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso,” Abiteboul said last week. “So frankly we are open to discussions. I can confirm there have been discussions with McLaren, but right now there is a restriction in the regulation if we wanted to supply more than three teams.

“In addition to that, I don’t think it would be reasonable to believe that we could supply more than three without degrading the level of service, the quality of service, for the other teams.

“We have had discussions and frankly, we have [current] contracts in place. We value the relationship with Red Bull. It is a long-standing relationship and we would like to carry this relationship until 2020, but if there is something to be done [elsewhere], why not?

“But right now I understand things are very quiet and they are not necessarily pushing for anything.”