during the Premier League match between Arsenal and Manchester United at Emirates Stadium on December 2, 2017 in London, England.

Once again reliability problems affected Fernando Alonso's performance when the Spaniard suffered yet another failure on the opening day of play at the Baku City Circuit.

The worst part was, Fernando was immediately quick in the day's second session, but then he failed to get the opportunity to conclude his run-plan.

His day was cut short by a suspected gearbox problem, which brought his MCL32 to a smoky halt on the inside of Turn 16.

Nonetheless, his 1m45.515s best was still 12th overall.

“We tested a few things in FP1 and FP2, running with different levels of downforce, trying to get some useful information for tomorrow. Stoffel worked on tyres, running on high fuel, both of which will help us make some useful decisions about strategy,” he explained.

“The track was tricky today – the Prime and Back-Up tyres lose some heat on the long straights, so when you get onto the brakes they suddenly lock up and you go straight on.”

“ We saw many cars going off today, mainly because everyone tries to find their limit on Friday. I think we'll see fewer offs tomorrow, and even fewer on Sunday. I lost the last half hour of the second session, so I suppose tomorrow we'll need to do some running on high fuel, to catch up with the programme. We'll have to start at the back of the grid anyway, so we'll take things smoothly in qualifying.”