Renault rookie Palmer was forced to end his first allocation of pre-season running early when the Renault power unit failed straight after he left the pits for a run.

“It was a power unit issue,” he confirmed. “A bit of smoke out of the back and end of day. Engine change.”

After managing only 37 laps yesterday, Palmer had completed another 42 when he hit trouble – just 45 minutes into the afternoon session.

When asked if it had been a great start to his programme, he admitted: “No. There are positives from today, we at least had the car running, to do some sort of baseline set-up work, get an understanding after yesterday that was a bigger disaster I think.

“At least we did some laps, some more relevant laps, but 79 laps is not ideal for half my pre-season testing – so I need a lot more next week.

“Today, we didn't really have any issues. Then suddenly we had a big one. It was all going quite well, then it has all come to a sudden stop. Which is a shame.

“Hopefully we can fix it and give Kevin some laps over the next two days.”

Aiming for “clean run” in week two

Palmer admitted the running he got fell way short of what he’d been expecting.

“I come to a test and sort of target 100 [laps] a day, but then you know day one could be quite difficult. The difficulties yesterday didn't help today, so I was targetting a lot more than 79 for two days.

“But that is how it is really. With the change of power unit, effectively a new team even though they are based in the same factory, so these sort of problems are bound to happen.

“It is just a shame it has come so early in the second day. I would love to get a clean run next week.

“When you do 40 laps average over two days, you are not exactly confident that it can run… We know the fixes at the moment, we will send it out and hopefully we can get some good laps.

“There is nothing that says we cannot."

Searching for reliability

Palmer will stay at the track to watch Magnussen in action tomorrow, then return to the factory for simulator work.

“Hopefully I will be watching Renault doing a lot of laps [tomorrow]. I keep my fingers crossed because we need it.

“I am sure [Kevin] will drive more laps than me and if he doesn't then we have had a really terrible start.”