» Alonso faces an uphill climb at Monaco

Fernando Alonso has a mountain to climb after being forced to miss out on qualifying due to an earlier crash in Saturday morning’s final practice session.

The Spaniard plucked both right-hand-side wheels off his Ferrari entering Massenet (shown in video), and the damage to his F10 was too severe for the double World Champion to be able to attempt any runs in qualifying.

As such, he will start the race from the pit lane – a far from ideal task on a circuit where overtaking is almost impossible.

"It’s a very difficult circuit because overtaking is impossible, so it’s the worst circuit to start at the back," Alonso said to reporters. "But we also saw in 2006 Michael [Schumacher] finished sixth (sic) starting last, so we need to try to repeat that performance.”

While Fernando’s knowledge of F1 history is maybe not top-shelf – Michael actually finished fifth that weekend – he is, nonetheless, determined to make amends come race day.

“It’s very difficult [to finish in the points], but we also know that it’s difficult [for] the first ten cars [to] finish the race, because many things can happen in one race. It happened to us in practice and maybe it can happen to others in the race. We have to be ready to take the opportunity."