Alonso: In the last corner the [steering] wheel was off

The Aston Martin driver was approaching the final part of the track when he suddenly radioed: "Change the steering wheel. There’s a problem with the steering wheel; it’s switching off."

Onboard footage showed the Alonso holding the steering wheel in his hands, his AMR25 slowly drifting into the run-off area before he was able to fix it back in it position and drive back to the pits.

After that, Aston Martin opted for a full change of the steering setup on Alonso's car who had enough time to rejoin the session and do some running.

Speaking to the media after the session on Friday, Alonso said: "The car [was] not working, and I could not shift gears at one point, so yeah, I had a dash off.

"So, I could not communicate with the team either, and in the last corner the wheel was off. So we realized that maybe the steering column of the wheel or something had a problem. The mechanics quickly changed the parts and everything was fine.

"So a moment there, but thanks to everyone in the garage to fix it quite fast," he maintained.

While the steering issue may have been an easy fix, Alonso's AMR25 may require more effort to make it go fast around the Sakhir International Circuit.

After finishing 15th in FP2, he commented: "I think it's going to be a tough weekend, unfortunately, we seem not to have the pace before coming here.

"The characteristics of Bahrain was a little bit of a concern for us, for our package, and probably we confirmed today that we are not competitive. It's going to be a tough weekend, but we will try to learn.

"We will try to push, and we are not giving up," the double Formula 1 champion concluded. (Reporting by Agnes Carlier)