I’ve been working hard on my fitness and I feel good and ready to go this weekend,” Alonso said. “The heat in Malaysia is always very tough for the drivers but I’ve been focusing on this in my training and I’m definitely prepared for all of the weather conditions that we can face in Sepang.”

McLaren were a long way off the pace in Melbourne but Alonso, a three-time Malaysian Grand Prix winner, is a firm believer of the MP4-30’s potential.

“The weekend will be tough, but I’m looking forward to getting into the MP4-30 for the first time in a Grand Prix and getting back to racing. I’ve spent some time in the simulator back at the factory with the team, and my focus will be on continuing the development of our package with my engineers, and working on our balance and race set-up. There’s a lot of potential in the car and we will keep pushing every race until we see results.

“I watched the weekend in Australia very closely and I was in touch with the team from the moment they arrived. It’s clear we have a lot of work ahead of us but Jenson [Button]’s result in Melbourne was encouraging from the point of view of reliability and data collection, which are extremely important. I’d also like to say thanks to Kevin [Magnussen] for his efforts over the weekend, and it’s a real shame he wasn’t able to get to the grid.”