Alonso: We were lucky.

Fernando Alonso has admitted that there is a long way to go before this year's Renault is a match for Formula One's frontrunners, despite taking home points for fourth place on his return to the team in Australia,

Fernando Alonso has admitted that there is a long way to go before this year's Renault is a match for Formula One's frontrunners, despite taking home points for fourth place on his return to the team in Australia,

The Spaniard's result was helped by the high rate of attrition in Melbourne - which accounted for both Ferraris amongst others - and by an ill-timed safety car that affected Heikki Kovalainen's gameplan and left the Finn battling with the Renault in the closing stages. Although fourth marked a better-than-expected result for Alonso, he trailed representatives from both BMW Sauber and Williams at the finish, teams that Renault would have hoped to be fighting closely with.

"To be honest, we have been lucky with our situation in Melbourne," Alonso told the official Formula One website, "In reality, we are not very competitive.

"After the winter testing, we already know that we were not close enough to fight for important things. We are well behind Ferrari, McLaren and BMW, and we are stuck in that group with Red Bull, Williams and Toyota. Sometimes, and that is depending on the track, the strategy and the set-up, we come in front of them, sometimes we will be behind. The situation is that we have to work hard to improve the car, we need to work better to lead that group of cars and eventually get closer to the top three."

Although clearly resigned to the situation he finds himself in having decided to terminate his McLaren deal after just one year, Alonso remains confident that Renault can turn its season around.

"I am optimistic," he admitted, "It is only the second race of the championship so, at that time of the year, you are always optimistic to improve the car and to close the gap. But we all know that, in Formula One, nothing is sure and, if we improve, the others will improve as well. So it is just up to us that we do a better job than the others.

"It is a fact that the top teams are quite at the limit of their development as they are trying to optimise their performance in the scope of the last couple of tenths, whereas we need to look for an overall better performance. I think that it is easier to improve a car like ours than to find those last missing tenths on a broad variety of possible causes.

"Basically, we need to improve everything - starting from the aerodynamics. We need more downforce, and we have probably not found a hundred per cent answer to the Bridgestone tyres so far, so we have to look into all areas of the car. Looking at lap times, I would say that we lose one to two seconds every lap - probably losing some seven tenths in the first sector, six tenths in the second and six tenths in the third - so you more or less lose in every corner of the track. And this is a situation we have to concentrate on."

Despite knowing that he will be hard-pressed to score decent points in 2008 - at least for now - Alonso admits that he is enjoying the midfield battle.

"At the moment, it is a very interesting race situation as I am fighting in the middle of a group with its own specific dynamics," he commented, "I am enjoying this new challenge, but don't get me wrong, as interesting as it may seem, our goal is to improve the car and close the gap to the frontrunner teams. In the end, we are here to win races and not fight in midfield - even if the battles are refreshing."

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