As sure as night follows day, it was inevitable that sooner or later the smile would slip and frustration would finally get the better of Fernando Alonso.

The Spaniard, who in the past has been only too eager to publicly criticise his teams, today could no longer hold his tongue.

Reduced to battling back markers, and even then unable to give a good account of himself, the Spaniard described the Honda engine in the back of his car as a "GP2 engine" and called it "embarrassing".

His criticism, at Honda's home circuit, and beamed around the world, will have been massively embarrassing for the Japanese giant.

At race end, Ron Dennis, though understanding of his driver's frustration, admitted it was wrong to make his feelings so public.

"I think he vented his frustration," he told Sky Sports F1. "I don't think he needed to make the comments, it wasn't particularly constructive.

“We are here in Japan, Suzuka, Honda's home track, we had the president of the Honda motor company, we had the head of R&D, chief executive of Honda motors - the three most senior people who are totally committed to winning a world championship and their curve is much steeper than they anticipated, but their aspirations and commitment has not diminished.

"We are strong partners, we will take the pain as a learning curve," he added, "it is the only way to win a world championship. If you are not with a number one engine you will not win a world championship."

Amidst speculation that he might walk away from the team, not helped by his reticence to saying whether he would continue next year when asked by the BBC, Alonso subsequently took to Twitter to insist he still has faith in McLaren and Honda, whilst admitting that his comments should not have been made in public.

"Some things from today that seem not clear to everybody," he tweeted. "Today was our 3rd best result of the season!!

"We keep working hard. When we are fighting in group is difficult, we all want to win, and sometimes transmit the team radios, but it should be private chats.

"No one should have any doubt that I have 3 years with McLaren and my career in F1 will end with this team, hopefully winning everything."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Tweek, 30/09/2015 8:20

"The moody spaniard strikes again. Lets hope he didn't get a concussion. Be better Fernando. The team deserves more from you than that. "

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2. Posted by SideGlance, 28/09/2015 8:51

"Sadly, GP2 engines sound sooooo much better than F1 and actually sound like a race engine, not a truck diesel engine !!! The current engine/PU is so complex that no new engine builders will enter F1, Audi/VW or anyone else. So I think Alonso is just reminiscing about years past when he had power and good sound and GP2 might be better/more fun than F1 for that !!!!! ;)

And the Honda unit seems like the worse sounding of all engines."

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3. Posted by GrahamG, 27/09/2015 19:34

"Lets face it, Ron thought he was the Messiah riding to McLaren's rescue and he's realising that he is no better - indeed worse - than the people he displaced. He's yesterday's man, get rid of him and appoint someone who has the vision and ability to lead them out of the wilderness - maybe JB as team manager?"

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4. Posted by testa rossa, 27/09/2015 17:44

"No Red Bullsh"t here"

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Dennis: He was venting his frustration

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