It was one of those days for Alpine at the Italian Grand Prix as neither Fernando Alonso nor Esteban Ocon scored points.
Alonso started up in sixth after engine penalties were handed out to Verstappen, Sergio Perez, Carlos Sainz and Sir Lewis Hamilton, while Ocon’s penalty saw him go from 14th.
Try as he might, the Frenchman struggled to make up the ground to the top 10, which was rounded off by Zhou Guanyu as Nyck de Vries grabbed two points on an amazing debut with Williams.
Alonso spent most of his afternoon battling with Lando Norris following the Briton’s poor start to the race, and he cleared the McLaren after a mistake at Turn One.
READ: Fernando Alonso jokes about El Plan as he’s quizzed on racing with Aston Martin in WEC
Norris quickly found his way back through, and Alonso then started to fall away from the 22-year-old.
The double world champion was passed by Hamilton, who would eventually come home fifth at the end of an impressive day for Mercedes as George Russell took third.
On lap 24, Alonso asked his team to check if there was an issue with his power unit’s deployment.
They told him that everything looked fine, to which he replied “wow.”
The reason for the Spaniard’s sudden loss of pace was that he started to face issues with energy deployment, but when he reported it, he was told that his team could not see anything on the data.
In the end, the 41-year-old was forced to retire the car, and Ocon’s P11 saw the French side walk away from a Sunday afternoon with no points for the second time this year.
READ: Fernando Alonso spotted picking up hilarious Lewis Hamilton gift
Max Verstappen took victory from Charles Leclerc after the Dutchman started seventh on the grid after a solid strategy, rapid race pace and an anticlimactic end to the race under a Safety Car.
The good news for Alpine was that, while Norris scored six points in P7, the other McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo retired from the race, which was the cause of that late Safety Car.
Alpine still McLaren by 18 points in the battle for fourth in the championship as a result.