Berger: Alonso will win F1 world title with McLaren

Gerhard Berger has played down McLaren-Honda's testing troubles, and predicts the historic pairing will bounce back rather sooner than later, much like their 'injured' driver Fernando Alonso will.

The Austrian who was part of the first McLaren-Honda era, as he was famously paired with Ayrton Senna between 1990 and 1992, knows the combo well and is familiar with their star driver too.

When asked if Alonso would win the world title with his new team, Berger told BBC, "Yes - he is a complete driver. He should have more championships because he is a big champion. The way that he drives, the killing instinct that he has, he's capable of winning more than two championships."

He also tipped Alonso to bounce back from his testing crash and eventually win titles for McLaren-Honda.

"Fernando is such an experienced driver, he will deal with it [the crash] in a good way and I don't think it's going to have any effect on him," he told the BBC. "He will be ready to go racing again."

However according to him, 2015 will be a "learning year" for the reunited British-Japanese team, but Berger knows from personal experience that both sides are "extremely competent".

"I don't think it should matter if tests at the moment are not great or if the first races are not great. It's normal," said Berger. "It would be more of a surprise if Honda were competitive from day one.

"I think once he [Alonso] signed up for McLaren-Honda, he knows there is going to be a learning period. I'm sure that he is going to be part of this learning," the 55-year-old added.

"Once this is done, I'm sure he wants to take all the fruits from the learning period. Alonso has some extreme high talent in certain areas, not just in driving skills but in the way he runs the politics," Berger said.

Looking back on his time as a driver for the Woking outfit, during their first Honda era Berger said, "In my time together with McLaren and Honda, it was extremely professional, extremely competent. There was a big hunger for success so I think this is the culture of Honda."