Alonso in the doghouse

Alonso ended the day with the 20th quickest time after spinning into the Turn 11 gravel at 85mph, the Spaniard coming to a halt just before the tyre wall.

"It was a very difficult opening day from my point of view," said Alonso. "The car had very low grip this morning, then I made a mistake early in the second session: the rear of the car was quite nervous, and I lost control under braking for Turn 11. At the moment, we are not in very good shape, and there is a lot of work to do this evening to try and catch up the time we have lost today."

Renault's engineering chief Pat Symonds said: "Our job was made more difficult by the fact that we had only one car with which to conduct the tyre comparison and, even then, Jarno suffered a suspected gearbox problem which interrupted him. However, we have managed to gather our data, and now need to make the best possible use of it."

Trulli ended the day down in 12th, and said: "I had a difficult day today. At this stage we do not seem to be competitive. The circuit was very slippery, which means the car has very little grip, and we haven't yet found a good balance."