Formula 1 had been bracing itself for a character-building start to testing at Jerez in Spain, but few had expected the kind of day we were eventually treated to.
The talk over the winter months had been of a reliability bloodbath in Spain; of frequent red flags and blown engines.
One senior technical figure even jokingly suggested pre-Christmas that there should be a sweepstake for the number of cars that actually managed to complete an installation lap on day one.