We need a miracle NANDO ALREADY DOOMED

QUIT THREAT: Fernando Alonso FERNANDO ALONSO is desperate to exit Formula One with a third title but he is already looking for divine inspiration to turn his season around. McLaren have endured nothing but misery in their pre-season testing and even a 13th-place qualifying spot for today’s Australian GP was nothing to write home about. Behind the scenes the Spaniard, 35, has been raging over the team’s shambolic inability to sit him in a winning car or even one capable of reaching the podium, the current one being a regular non-finisher. And with a threat to walk hanging over the team, Alonso said: “We are uncompetitive, we are not quick enough to battle for the big positions. “It needs to come from God and have a miracle to help us. Something TED MACAULEY more than what we are doing at the moment.

“So we need help from the others, we need help from rain, we need help from God, we need everything. So that’s not good.”

This historic team has amassed 12 drivers’ championships, eight constructors’ titles and 182 GP victories.

But their last triumph was through Jenson Button at the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo five years ago.

And the unreliable Honda engine has been a nightmare in testing, with the team being able to complete no more than 11 consecutive laps.

“We came here with no clear picture of where we were, and the worst case scenario was that we were very uncompetitive and reliability was a big issue in testing,” said Alonso.

“More or less we’ve run all the sessions trouble-free. But I think there are concerns. Definitely the reliability, as I said in Barcelona, is one of our biggest issues and we reinforced some of the parts and they kept breaking.

“But I think we still don’t have 100 per cent knowledge of everything that is happening to the cars so it’s still early days. For us it’s like winter testing now.”

Team boss Eric Boullier admitted the relationship with the Japanese car giant was, “under maximum strain”.

He said: “We are a well-respected name with a glorious record in F1 and we have to perform. We cannot afford to put a foot wrong. We need to deliver. We need Honda to deliver – and they are under tremendous pressure.

“Fernando is extremely focused and he is the finest type of example to all of our team, an inspiration who gives his racing his utmost effort. We all understand his frustration.”