The Spaniard lapped 1.899s off Lewis Hamilton’s Barcelona pole position time to match the best qualifying position of his second stint at McLaren – even though he lost all of yesterday’s first free practice session to an engine failure.

This is the first time Alonso has reached Q3 in 2017, but he believes another major step is needed from Honda to have any chance of fighting at the front.

“I don’t think that 50 is enough,” said Alonso when asked after qualifying if an extra 50bhp would allow him to be on pole. “Maybe it’s a bit more than that.

“Hopefully we improve the situation, not only the performance side but the reliability because sometimes we could take some points in the past and we had to stop the car.”

Potential was masked

Alonso suggested problems during Friday practice had shrouded the real potential of the car, which features a significant upgrade package.

While he described qualifying seventh as “a surprise”, he said the improved car gave him confidence to attack.

“It has to be a combination of the two,” said Alonso when asked if his strong performance was down to the driver or car. “My feeling is the car because I did nothing differently to any other qualification, but the car was giving me the confidence always to push.

“The conditions were quite difficult with the wind, but I never had a moment when I lost the confidence so the car was performing really well. Yesterday, we saw the potential but we had strange sessions but today we put everything together.”

Targets passing Red Bulls

Alonso is hopeful of being able to score his first points of the season in tomorrow’s race given overtaking is difficult at the Spanish GP circuit.

“It’s a track that is very difficult to follow on, so if we do a good start and keep this position I think the points are a real possibility,” said Alonso.

“I’m only thinking of the start, how to overtake the Red Bulls. I want to be in the top five in the first couple of laps.”