After the difficult pre-season and the many problems that McLaren has faced in the tests that have been held in Barcelona before the start of the season, the confidence level of Alonso seem to have fallen a bit.

“I understand we are not at the level of Mercedes or Ferrari or Red Bull now,” said two-time champion Alonso. “But we should be there in a couple of races’ time or in the second part of the championship, because we are McLaren.”

After the change of the engine from Honda to Renault, since McLaren was blaming Honda for the lack of the performance and reliability form the power unit, they thought that things would go the right way. But the pre-season showed that their expectations are not really fulfilled, leaving place for many improvement in many different aspects.

“Obviously it is an important season for us with many changes on the team, especially on the power-unit. And obviously it is time to get some results for the team after three difficult years,” Alonso said. “It is difficult to know where we are right now because winter testing is only testing and we need to discover things a little bit in the first couple of grands prix. “I think we have a good baseline and a good car to work with. But expectations are always high because we are McLaren and we have to deliver better results than what we saw in the last years.”