Ferrari grapple with reliability issues

Fernando Alonso described Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix as the hardest race of his life after retiring on the penultimate lap and losing the championship lead to Ferrari team mate Felipe Massa.

Massa finished seventh to leapfrog Alonso in the standings after the Spaniard suffered an engine failure while battling McLaren’s Jenson Button for eighth place. While Sebastian Vettel led a Red Bull one-two with Mark Webber,Ferrari were left to scrap with McLaren for the minor places after both teams botched their chances of victory with tactical errors in qualifying. “On the formation lap,my gearbox broke and I had no clutch during the race,so I had to brake in a weird way,” a rueful Alonso told reporters after starting the race in 19th place on the grid. “So it was probably the hardest race of my whole life in terms of driving,because I had to improvise for every corner. But even so we were going to get a few points,which in the end was not possible because of the engine.”

The twice world champion started the season with a victory in Bahrain and a fourth in Melbourne a week ago but despite his flop in Malaysia,Alonso tried to look on the bright side. “If the gearbox and then the engine are going to break,it’s better that in happens when you are ninth than when you are leading and you lose 25 points,” he said.