MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - MARCH 18: Andrew Hoole of the Jets (L) compete for the ball against Josh Rose of the City during the round 23 A-League match between Melbourne City FC and the Newcastle Jets at AAMI Park on March 18, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)

Despite his strongest grid slot of the year McLaren Honda driver Fernando Alonso lost his seventh position on the opening lap, after being pushed wide by the Williams of Felipe Massa into Turn Two and taking a trip across the gravel.

From there the Spaniard lost ground and dropped down the order, ending the first lap in 11th place.

The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya being a relatively high speed track and the MCL32 wasn't able to progress through the field.

Added to that, Fernando lost positions through the first and second round of pit-stops, after which he spent much of the afternoon in 15th place.

A spirited drive and an unplanned final pit stop on lap 51 allowed him to find better pace in the closing stages, and he moved back up to finish his home race in 12th position.

“The race didn't go as we'd planned. We were a little bit unlucky with the contact in Turn Two with Felipe [Massa] and then we were behind Daniil [Kvyat] for too many laps in the mid part of the race, but even without that I think we didn't have the race pace to be in the points today to be honest,” he said. “I'm a little disappointed, but at least we finished the race, and hopefully this is the first sign of a step forward in reliability. We now need to prepare better the next Grand Prix.”

Fernando left the track to fly directly to Indianapolis for the first practice session on Monday morning local time ahead of his Indy 500 debut.

“Tomorrow at 9.00am I need to be at the Brickyard, and at 12.00pm noon I'll be in the car for first practice. So I now have 14 hours to rest, nine of which will be spent on the plane, so we need to switch into Indy mode now, and for the next two weeks my full focus will be on that,” he said.

Meanwhile, Jenson Button will visit the McLaren Technology Centre this week to drive the simulator again, before deputising for Fernando in the Monaco Grand Prix in two weeks' time.