Fernando Alonso said he “couldn’t switch on” his ‘blacked-out’ Alpine car before the start of the Sprint race for the Austrian Grand Prix.
“Five minutes before the start we had full blackout in the car and we could not switch [it] on,” he told Motorsport.com.
“We tried to fire up with an external battery, but it didn’t work either, so there is something bigger going on there, and let’s try to fix it for tomorrow.
“Because they weren’t lining up in the starting grid, we tried to be ready, but it didn’t work with the second battery either so, as I said, there is something bigger going on.”
Alonso, frustrated by the outcome, said his weekend is already over as it is difficult to overtake around the Red Bull ring.
“Yeah, it’s over. Weekend over in general, because as we saw here, there are trains of cars and you cannot pass,” he said.
“It’s going to be frustrating with the DRS trains and things like that. So we will try to be creative with the strategy and try to get lucky maybe with Safety Cars or something.
“So let’s see, but I think it’s going to be a very, very long race behind many cars.”
