Alonso: 16th was our maximum

Fernando Alonso. P16. It still seems odd for that to truly be the case but it’s been that way for a little while and it probably will be until he leaves the sport at the end of the season.

The retiring great had another day to forget with McLaren as he was yet again knocked out in Q1 and will start 16th for the American Grand Prix later today.

The Spaniard is yet to make up his mind on where he wants to go after F1, but surely he will just be pleased to be away from the sport that has yielded such little success for him in recent years.

Since joining McLaren in 2015, Alonso has not even threatened to score a podium let alone challenging to win races, and the car is certainly one of the worst in the field right now.

After another early end to qualifying, Alonso said: "Both laps were clean, with no traffic, no issues, the car felt good and was responding well, so we more or less maximised the package.

“That's the maximum we could achieve today, as unfortunately we didn't have the pace in dry conditions.

“We missed making it into Q2 by a couple of milliseconds as it was quite tight in the midfield, with one or two tenths to P11."