After a disastrous start to pre-season testing, there was more bad news for McLaren today as Fernando Alonso was spotted lurking around other teams’ garages asking if they ‘needed any help’.

Spies within the McLaren camp says that with the MP4-31 in a frequent state of malfunction, the Spanish driver has divided his time between skulking around other teams’ areas asking for work and browsing the internet for a new deckchair.

‘Fernando came into our garage yesterday,’ revealed a source from one front-running operation. ‘He hung around for a bit making small talk then, just as he was leaving, he asked if we needed any help with “you know, driving and stuff”.’

‘Alonso was hanging around our stuff for ages yesterday,’ said an engineer for another well-known team. ‘After a while he looked at our data and loudly said, “Nice times. I wonder if I could do better in this car? Wouldn’t it be funny to find out, perhaps here, or maybe in Melbourne” then he laughed nervously, stopped for a minute, grabbed a spanner off the bench and ran off.’

‘With his own car not working, I think he just wants to have a go in a Mercedes or a Ferrari or a Red Bull or a Williams or a Force India or a Renault or a Sauber or a Toro Rosso or a Haas or a Manor or a lawn tractor,’ said F1 journalist Maurice Ital. ‘Basically, anything that’s faster.’