Engine failure on first lap of Barcelona practice deepens gloom; Spaniard then leaves circuit for a game of tennis
Friday 12 May 2017 16:55, UK
Fernando Alonso's 2017 F1 woes took another turn for the worse in Practice One for his home Spanish GP when his McLaren-Honda's engine failed on the first lap.
After it became clear that the problem wouldn't be fixed before the end of the session, Alonso then left the track for a game of tennis with his trainer.
A day after the two-time world champion warned that he would have no choice but to look at alternative drives if the McLaren-Honda package did not soon start showing race-winning potential for 2018, Alonso's MCL32 broke down at the second corner with smoke billowing from the rear of the car.
Asked by Sky F1 on his return to the paddock what had gone wrong, Alonso bluntly replied: "It's a question for Honda not for me. Engine.
"The engine blew up after one corner. It's the way it is, we miss the first session. I'm sorry for the fans.
"Hopefully the second session can be better and we recover this time."
Sky F1's Martin Brundle said: "It's just unbelievable that they cannot get the thing running.
"The trouble with these latest hybrid engines is that power, efficiency and reliability are all very much one and the same thing. If you haven't got the concept together then the whole lot falls apart and that's what we're seeing with the Honda at the moment."
Alonso had labelled the team's pre-race engine failures in Bahrain and Russia, when Stoffel Vandoorne and then the Spaniard himself could not take the start respectively, as "completely unacceptable".
Alonso has not finished a race this season, with McLaren bottom of the Constructors' Championship and without a point.
"It's tough but it's tougher for McLaren, who bring updates trying to find a millisecond here and there and we cannot even run," added Alonso. "Hopefully we find a solution and can run in P2."
Honda confirmed that the engine which failed was one which had been used earlier in the season in Australia, China and Bahrain qualifying.
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