McLaren boss Zak Brown couldn't believe his eyes when Fernando Alonso's McLaren was left stranded after just three corners in the morning's free practice session.
As he embarked on his first lap of the day, Alonso came to a smoking halt on the exit of Turn 3, his morning undermined by another Honda power unit failure.
"Sadness… disappointment… just kind of a state of disbelief," Brown commented on Alonso's early exit from FP1.
"But you then can't cry over spilt milk, so we it [was best to] quickly getting to turning your attention to Stoffel's car and seeing what we learn there.
"He's gone alright today all things considered, he's done an exceptional job, then you hope to learn about whatever caused the failure."
A dejected Alonso simply left the Circuit de Catalunya shortly after his engine failure, and hit the nearby tennis courts instead.
"I think anything Fernando can do to exercise his frustration is a good thing," he added.
"If you go sit in a room you just don’t exercise, [you need to] get some energy out, you get built up energy, you expect to go out and do an hour and a half and end up doing something substantially less than that.
"I think going and doing other activities to get your mind off it is healthy."
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