The Spaniard’s Renault team had already been beaten in practice by Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, who beat Alonso by a massive 1.319 seconds.

Alonso is highly unlikely to start from the top 10, leaving title rival Michael Schumacher as favourite for the race. But he was keen not to talk up Ferrari’s chances.

Schumacher said: “It is always hard to judge the results on Friday. We need to take a close look at the data to get clearer picture of the situation.

“Naturally we hope to be at the front of the grid and I think we have a good chance of doing that.”

Alonso’s punishment was made worse by stewards decreeing he would suffer a time penalty in each of today’s three qualifying sessions.

With only the top 16 passing through to second qualifying, his task will be tricky but he will find it nearly impossible to reach the final top-10 shoot-out.

On a track where overtaking is next to impossible, he may live to regret his incident with Red Bull tester Doornbos.

He gesticulated angrily at the Dutchman after being held up before weaving ahead and slowing dramatically, forcing Doornbos to take avoiding action.

That potentially dangerous move is frowned upon in Formula One but Alonso claimed he was just reminding Doornbos to use his mirrors.

He said: “What happened is the same thing that happens in every race and in the test sessions when you lap someone. The slower cars take so long and they don’t look in the mirror too much.

“When you overtake them you always do something to say ‘look in the mirror’ - and this time it seems that it is really important.”

Race stewards disagreed, claiming Alonso’s actions were “unnecessary, unacceptable and dangerous”.

He was penalised one second for that incident, with a further second imposed for overtaking under yellow at the end of the session.