 With the championship returning to Asia for the second round of flyaway races , the team arrived in Singapore confident of scoring points ; despite both cars advancing to the second period of qualifying and running in the top ten throughout the race , both cars retired with gearbox problems . Alonso was forced out after his car kept selecting neutral without input — a problem that affected several drivers ; Button was involved in contact with Pastor Maldonado while trying to pass the slow @-@ moving Alexander Rossi during a safety car restart before his gearbox overheated . After experimenting with a new front wing designed to improve air flow around the front tyres during free practice in Singapore , the team introduced the parts at the next race in Japan one week later . However , the team struggled with tyre pressures ; following Sebastian Vettel 's high @-@ speed tyre blow @-@ out during the Belgian Grand Prix , the FIA introduced a mandatory minimum tyre pressure setting on the advice of tyre supplier Pirelli . For the Japanese Grand Prix , these pressures were raised by 2 psi ( 14 kPa ) compared to the levels used during the 2014 race , which affected the MP4 @-@ 30 's ride height and vertical suspension travel and produced increased understeer . Despite taking advantage of grid penalties that saw them start twelfth and fourteenth respectively , Alonso and Button went on to finish eleventh and sixteenth . With the team acknowledging that the Singapore Grand Prix had represented their final opportunity to score points on merit , their focus shifted to development of their 2016 car over the final leg of the championship . In addition to the engine upgrades Honda brought to Russia , the team sought to use the high @-@ speed and low @-@ degradation characteristics of the Sochi Autodrom circuit to test experimental bodywork parts , including the exhaust configuration . In a race of attrition , both Button and Alonso initially finished in the points , with Button in ninth and Alonso taking tenth until Alonso was given a five @-@ second penalty after the race that relegated him to eleventh place . 
