Alonso: No reason to be pessimistic

After ditching Honda in 2017, this year the team fired-up a Renault bolted to the back of a McLaren for the first time, the final act in the dismantling of the Ron Dennis era by McLaren's new regime and the spotlight now falls on the fruits of their plans and vision.

Despite the problem-plagued eighth days of testing at Circuit de Catalunya, their star driver Fernando Alonso is positive as he looks ahead to the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

"I do not see any reason to be pessimistic," Alonso said in an interview with Onda Cero. "We are very happy with the change to Renault - we have improved four seconds compared to last year."

"McLaren is the second best team in history, Renault is one of the best engine makers ever and together we are full of ambition. I can't see why it will not turn out well."

The British team were aiming to match Red Bull during testing but what was clear in Barcelona wa that they lagged on the mileage and their lap times were, on average, eight-tenths tenths of a second shy of the energy drinks outfit.

Alonso continued, "Things have not changed much since the presentation or the plans we had for the winter. We wanted to improve on the last three years and try to get as close as possible to the three best teams. We are on the way to doing that."

"McLaren can jump from being ninth to being close to them and fighting in the race. When we changed to Renault we all agreed that it would be good if McLaren was close to the top three, in the top five in every race possible, always in Q3 and fighting for a podium when we can."

Alonso endured frustration and disappointment for the past three years and revealed how it affected him, "My life is based on competition and winning. When I lack victory it is hard but I also learned other things."

"In these years my sights were opened up to other legendary competitions like Indy and the WEC. Everything happens for a reason. Those years had some frustration but now I'm happy because I have become a more complete driver."

Alonso observed that Mercedes "seems to be in total domination mode" and added "normally there are six cars in the first three grid rows, so then there is the question: McLaren, Haas, Renault or Force India? The first thing we have to do is to win that battle."

Many believe that Alonso created a large chunk of the pressure for McLaren to ditch Honda in favour of Renault, but the Spaniard denies it, "I have no problem with Honda. It never crossed my mind to leave.

"But we will see how the Honda is in Australia," said the Spaniard. "They did a good winter test and if they are in the first five I will applaud. But I don't think so. One test is not the same as 21 races with three engines."

"I think [Honda] can be in the last three or four positions and we at McLaren will try to be in the first five, six," predicted Alonso.