• Bahrain Grand Prix

Alonso bemoans poor luck with DRS

Fernando Alonso's rescued four points for eighth place after his DRS stuck open on lap six © Sutton Images

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• Report:
• Vettel eases to victory at action-packed Bahrain GP
  

• Race:
• Bahrain Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Fernando Alonso

• Teams:
• Ferrari

Fernando Alonso said he was "very, very unlucky" to have a DRS problem which relegated him to the back of the field early in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

In the opening laps Alonso's DRS stuck open, forcing him to pit to have the wing fixed, but the same problem happened on the following lap and when Alonso immediately pit again he rejoined well down the order. Alonso attributed the problem to bad luck but said he was sure his title rivals would suffer similar difficulties at some point in the year.

"It was very difficult," Alonso said. "We stopped two times in two laps so you are at the back of the group and with no DRS to use to pass so the race becomes very, very difficult. But it's the way it went today. A very, very unlucky race again, so in four races we've had two very unlucky moments. It will come for the others and we will take the opportunity in that moment.

"With the DRS it remained open the first time. I informed the team that we'd finished the rear tyres because I thought at that stage that it was the rear tyres had gone completely, but they told me 'No, the tyres are OK it's just the DRS so we need to pit in this lap'. They fixed it and it was some kind of feeling that it had stuck there so with that manoeuvre we thought it was OK. But obviously it was not OK, on the out lap again it happened and we had to pit again."

Asked as to the potential result he could have got without the problem, Alonso hinted that second was the best he could have hoped for.

"A final result I don't know; I don't have a crystal ball to see, so I guess the podium was the realistic target looking at Kimi [Raikkonen] being on the podium and [Romain] Grosjean as well. I think we could fit in those positions; I don't know the timed laps from Sebastian [Vettel] exactly because I didn't see so if he was too fast for us today then second was good for us. But I don't know if we were that fast or not."

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