Fernando Alonso has insisted that he still believes in McLaren, despite accusing the team of "looking like amateurs" during the Canadian Grand Prix.
The two-time Formula 1 world champion vented his frustrations over his radio during the race in Montreal after being asked to save fuel by his race engineer.
After the race, the Spaniard told BBC Sport: "I was talking to you for five years in third, fourth, fifth place. That was a lot of frustration. To beat Mercedes you need to do something unique and different. I believe in this project.
"It was not frustration. It was just a disagreement on when to save fuel. When you are surrounded by cars trying to overtake you and you are in the middle of battles, fuel is a low priority in that moment and you will have time later on in the race to save fuel.
"So after three or four reminders of fuel saving I said 'Let me race now and have some fun and later I will think about the fuel'. When everyone passes you so easily like that, you look like an amateur driver and that is not good. But we know we are not super-competitive now and we need to improve reliability so many things to do in our case but hopefully these weekends give us some lessons to improve things."
Alonso and teammate Jenson Button both retired from the race, which was won by reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton.
Sian Cowper
