The Mexican has finished only one race so far this year in a campaign that has been affected by a spate of mechanical troubles. At Barcelona on Friday, his afternoon running was curtailed again by an electronic issues.

Speaking after the session, he said that the onus was now on the team to turn the corner on sorting the problems out – but it was clear he was not happy with the way things were playing out.

"I honestly put myself aside from this because it's not really my responsibility to fix the car," he said. "The team has to get on top of this.

"I am here to drive, to drive as fast as possible and it is what I really love doing. It's not nice because it's making me look very bad to the outside as a driver, personally.

"All the f*****g great job I'm doing on the inside is not really perceived by the outside. So it's a little bit frustrating on that side, and also showing my pace.

"I've been quick in everything. I just hope to get the car that I deserve in order to put the results on the paper."

Lewis Hamilton has moved to reassure his fans that he still has faith in the Mercedes team and his mechanics, despite a troubled start to the 2016 season.

Hamilton used Facebook to put his thoughts across, saying that he trusted his guys “1000%.

His full message is as follows: “I want you to know how grateful I am for all of your support. I’d like to ask that you please trust in my team, as I do. This is my family. These guys have been the greatest, hardest working people for me, and that is why I am now 3x World Champion. Please don’t put any more thought into my team doing anything unjust towards me, and understand that it would be in no one’s best interest for that to be the case.

“We’ve had the best 3 years together, and whilst it’s not going to plan right now, all will unfold in its own time. I trust these guys 1000% and my mechanics are incredible, the best in the business. I respect them so please do the same. They are the guys that are going to make winning this championship possible. Thank you once again.”

"I think Toro Rosso has a very competitive package, to be honest. One car warmed up the tyres, one car didn't warm up the tyres, and the car that warmed up the tyres looked very competitive.

"So hopefully I will join the competitive pack tomorrow."

Kvyat is impressed by the Ferrari engine, and the way it works with the STR chassis.

"I think Ferrari has a very big potential as well, it's a very smooth power unit, I was very pleased with how it works. It felt like it's all-in-all a more balanced thing that you have behind yourself.

"Of course you still have to be able to adjust it the grip level you have and so on, the chassis is always dependent.

"There are more specific details in the power unit that are quite interesting as well. I think having driven both of them I think I can actually bring something interesting.

Ron Dennis has indicated he will not give the green light for Honda to begin supplying engines to customer teams.

A new rule means engine manufacturers in F1 must be prepared to supply up to three teams per season, but McLaren supremo Dennis has a reported contractual veto guaranteeing an exclusive works arrangement for the Woking team.

Reports this week have linked Toro Rosso and Force India with potential Honda deals for 2017 but Dennis says it is important for McLaren to focus on its own targets for now.

“If you want to win world championships, plural, which we absolutely do, you have to be aligned with a manufacturer, toe to toe, head to head, and fully prioritised,” he said in an interview with F1 Racing magazine.

“And after you’re begun to reap the competitive benefits of that mutually loyal one-to-one commitment, and on-track success duly begins to come, then you can consider supplying other teams, but not before,” Dennis said in the interview to mark McLaren’s 50th anniversary.

“Yes, we at McLaren want to be good formula one citizens, and we always have been, but altruistic behaviour of that nature must also be set against a background of fair, pragmatic and sensible business practices.

“So if you want to hear it in blunt terms, let’s get to the point where we’ve won the world championship first and then we’ll think about it,” he added.

Sebastian Vettel has slammed speculation in Italy that Ferrari Formula 1 team principal Maurizio Arrivabene is set to be replaced.

There couldn't be a more apt postscript to the Sochi Games than this: The whole thing was a fake.

The IOC, thinking it had found its latest desperate despot with billions to burn on it while cooing in its ear, was actually being played for fools, as Russia used the home-country advantage to attempt to rig the entire event.

Ah, Thomas Bach, how could you have not seen this coming?

The Times story is surprising only in its breadth and detail.

Of course the Russians were going to cheat. They spent tens of billions, not counting whatever bribe money was or was not doled out, to host the Games. They weren't doing all that to wind up struggling to win medals, finishing sixth like they did in Vancouver four years earlier.

It would have been out of character had they just lost, Putin just saying they'll get them next time. If you're going to let them host the Games, of course they were going to put an over-the-top doping production together.

Everything in Sochi was crooked, not just the poorly laid sidewalks. Just about everyone who was there spent three weeks looking around at the ridiculousness of these Games, at the shoddy construction and bizarre planning and the senseless logistics and had doubts.

Everyone, apparently, but Bach and his friends.

"In a dark-of-night operation," the Times wrote, "Russian antidoping experts and members of the intelligence services surreptitiously replaced urine samples tainted by performance-enhancing drugs with clean urine collected months earlier, somehow breaking into the supposedly tamper-proof bottles that are the standard at international competitions, Dr. Rodchenkov said. For hours each night, they worked in a shadow laboratory lit by a single lamp, passing bottles of urine through a hand-size hole in the wall, to be ready for testing the next day, he said."