Fernando Alonso retired from what could be his last Barcelona Grand Prix with a battery issue, and declared the fan support that he received throughout the weekend was his one and only highlight.

Alonso arrived at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya well aware that it could be a difficult weekend for the struggling Honda-powered Aston Martin team.

Fernando Alonso hails Barcelona fans after Aston Martin retirement

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After being out-qualified by team-mate Lance Stroll, Alonso rued “the worst car and the worst engine”.

His weekend suffered a further blow when Aston Martin announced that he would start the Grand Prix from the pit lane as the team had changed his energy store and MGU-K.

It had Alonso telling his fans that he would rather “stay here to watch the race” with them as it would be “more comfortable than in the car”.

Alas, his words proved prophetic.

Alonso spent the final 25 laps of the 66-lap Grand Prix on the sidelines after coming to a halt on the side of the track at Turn 9.

The double world champion revealed it was a sudden battery failure that led to his DNF.

Asked if he had any warning, he told PlanetF1.com and other media: “No, no, no.

“The engineer came on the radio saying to stop the car and jump out of the car. So I imagine it was an ERS problem when you have to jump out of the car.

“Apparently it’s the battery.”

He added: “We changed some of the parts that broke in the race, unfortunately.

“We are struggling on performance, but also on reliability, still not bulletproof. So, yeah, we’re still dealing with a lot of issues.”

Alonso climbed out of his stricken Aston Martin as the crowd in the grandstand broke into chanting “bravo, bravo Alonso”.

The Spaniard billed the support from his home crowd as his one highlight of what is likely to be his final F1 Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, the venue for his last F1 win back in 2013.

“It was the best part of the weekend,” he said. “The fans were incredible the whole weekend. That was very, very nice feeling. Very emotional weekend for me, maybe the last in Barcelona.

“So, yeah, out the car, I enjoy it every minute, but unfortunately we didn’t give to them what they deserve in terms of results.

“Hopefully our second part of the year we can improve the situation.”

Alonso wasn’t the only Aston Martin retirement on Sunday with Lance Stroll out of the Grand Prix with a gearbox issue on Lap 6.

Alonso said it is now up to Aston Martin to upgrade the AMR26, so that he can be in a position to capitalise as he did in Monaco, where he scored the team’s first point of the championship.

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“We need to stay together, for sure,” he said.

“That point in Monaco proves that we are not giving up. Even if we were at the back of the grid, we were able to finish the race and take whatever opportunity.

“We have hopes for the second part of the year with improvement that we can be a little bit more competitive. We keep on working.

“But yeah, we need to see some results as well. Eventually we need to see some of the upgrades to make the car faster. The last few years, some of the upgrades didn’t make the car really fast as we wanted.

“So there are some things to prove with this year’s upgrades, and we are all hoping for the best.”

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