Alonso ground to a halt during the race due to what turned out to be a water pump issue that in turn caused damage to his internal combustion engine, and led the latter being lost from his pool for the rest of the season.
The ICE was new for the Jeddah weekend after the Spaniard suffered an apparent engine issue in the latter stages of the Bahrain GP. That power unit was returned to Renault HQ in Viry for examination, and has now been passed for future use.
In its absence, Alonso thus took a second set of new elements for the Jeddah weekend. While only the V6 has been damaged, its loss has guaranteed that he will face a grid penalty well before the end of the season, as drivers are only allowed to use three for the year.
“The two issues are not linked,” team principal Otmar Szafnauer told Motorsport.com. “In Bahrain Fernando finished the race, and it was precautionary that we had to take it back to Viry and run it on the dyno. It’s fine, and it’ll go back into the pool.
“However,…
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