The Spaniard, who missed out on a potential front row start in Melbourne after his car shut down shortly after he had set a purple sector time in Q3, had appeared to be on course for a strong recovery from 10th in the race.
But hopes of making his alternative tyre strategy work, having started on the hard tyres, evaporated when a safety car following Sebastian Vettel’s crash came out at the wrong moment.
It was too early for him to make the switch to mediums, and also meant that, when he did stop, he got dumped into traffic.
In the end, having needed an extra late stop after ruining his tyres, Alonso came home down in 17th.
Asked for his feelings afterwards, he said: “Speechless to be honest.
“It’s hard to accept that everything is going in the wrong way at the moment. But it’s only three races in the championship, still 20 to go. Luck I guess is going to compensate sooner or later in the 23 races and we will be in other occasions lucky, I guess so.
“But at the moment we…
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