FERNANDO Alonso condemned Formula 1’s attempt to bring in driver introductions at the US Grand Prix as “a bad copy” of the Indianapolis 500, which the Spaniard competed in earlier this year.

Alonso is due to leave F1 at the end of the season and has refused to rule out competing in IndyCar in the future as he looks to complete motorsport’s triple crown by winning the Indy500, having already claimed victories in Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix.

He suffered engine failure to end his US GP early, as he did during his Indy500 debut this year when he was leading for 27 laps before retiring after completing 179 of the 200.

Alonso was critical of F1 owners Liberty Media’s new ‘entertainment plan’ which was rolled out and included legendary boxing announcer Michael Buffer giving each driver their own introduction on the grid.

“In a way it was the same result,” said Alonso when comparing his performance in Austin to his Indy500 debut.

“The only thing that was not similar was the driver presentation, which was a bad copy. But the rest it was quite a similar outcome.”

The 37-year-old’s retirement in the early hours of Monday morning was made all the more frustrating given he was running in seventh place at the time and were the ‘best of the rest’, behind the dominant trio of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

“I think it was a race that no one gave us anything. It was not a gift that we were seventh, we fought for that,” he said.

“We had a good qualifying performance, we had a good start. We were fighting in the race hard. I think we were seventh because we were seventh-quickest.

“And we lost that opportunity. The last four or five race we lost 20, 30 points that probably could help my classification in the drivers’ standing and also the constructors’ standing for the teams. We missed this opportunity. We start last in Japan. We will start last in Mexico as well so that’s tough.”