F1 testing: Fernando Alonso starts 2018 off in familiar style as McLaren suffer tyre failure on first day in Barcelona

Alonso ended up in the gravel trap on just his sixth lap but McLaren managed to salvage what was left with the rest of the day as Red Bull topped the timesheets

Fernando Alonso spun off the Barcelona track on only his sixth lap at the first pre-season test (Getty)

As far as new dawns go, McLaren’s could not have gone much worse. Within six laps of Fernando Alonso’s emergence from the pit lane, he was in the gravel with three wheels left on his wagon. The headlines were written immediately: have the wheels fallen off McLaren’s season already?

Thankfully there was no lasting damage sustained to Alonso’s car as the right-rear wheel detached as he ran through the final corner, and once the MCL33 was extracted from the gravel trap and retrieved to the pit lane, it was repaired and Alonso sent back out for the afternoon session.

By 14:30, Alonso had passed the 29-lap mark that McLaren managed to complete at the opening test last season under their old Honda power unit, although there was little sense of achievement when the counter stuck 30 as Toro Rosso – the team that has inherited the off-pace unreliable Japanese engine – rattled out 72 laps by the lunchtime interval.

Having laboured behind the frontrunners for the last three years as they struggled with the Honda power unit, McLaren decided to cut their losses and join up with Renault for 2018 in the hope that they can return to the fight for the podiums, race wins and even world championships, and while the sight of the Honda-powered Toro Rosso completing more than 100 trouble-free laps will not have been all that pleasing, they will not be panicking just yet.

"We are working hard and we have not set targets for specific race finishes, but we want to be competitive and that is our goal," said Zak Brown, McLaren’s executive director.

"Whether that is one podium, five podiums, or no podiums, it will all depend on what the rest of the teams do. We expect to be racing at the front of the field."

McLaren were able to get Alonso back out for the afternoon session (Getty)

He added of Alonso’s spin: "There was no drama in the garage and everyone was quite relaxed and getting on with it. All the teams will have a variety of issues throughout testing and we are going to lose very little time so it is no big deal.

"This team is used to public pressure and having eyes on us. We enjoy that and we like to step up to the plate and thrive on the opportunity so we are not feeling any more added pressure than we already put on ourselves."

Daniel Ricciardo set the fastest lap time of the day (Getty)

But come the end of the first session in Barcelona, it was at least a Renault-powered car at the top of the timesheet. Daniel Ricciardo set the fastest time in his Red Bull while out in the morning on the medium tyres, going faster than the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas on the same tyre and Kimi Raikkonen on the softs.

Reigning champion Lewis Hamilton also got behind the wheel of the Mercedes W09 for the afternoon session, but a rain-disrupted two-hour period saw running severely limited until the final 60 minutes of the day. Hamilton did manage to post the seventh fastest time of the day, 2.148 seconds slower than Ricciardo and just under two seconds off Bottas as he struggled for grip in the cool temperatures.