gitlab runner does not create correct diectory structure

When using the shell executor on a freshly installed gitlab runner I get this sort of error:

Running with gitlab-runner 12.0.2 (d0b76032)
  on runnername token
Using Shell executor...
Running on iapetus...
bash: line 77: cd: /home/gitlab-runner/builds/token/0/namespace/project: No such file or directory
ERROR: Job failed: exit status 1

creating the directory does not solve the issue, it then gives me no error message but still fails.