Alonso sees Red Bull 'far ahead' of McLaren this weekend

The stable of Milton Keynes arrives in Australia after having experienced its best winter since its fourth Drivers-Constructors double in 2013 and the advent of V6 turbo hybrids. Their rivals Woking, for their part, are coming out of three delicate seasons with their former engine manufacturer Honda which pushed them into the arms of the Losange.

McLaren has a good reference in Red Bull to benchmark itself against but Alonso warns that any comparison risks being unfavorable to his team at the start of the season.

« Red Bull is a very strong team with great drivers behind the wheel, confided the double Spanish world champion. They made a lot of progress during the winter. During winter testing, they performed very well. If you ask me now, I would say they are far ahead of us. Afterwards, our objective during the season will be to get closer to them because we share the same engine. McLaren must close the gap race after race. »

When Red Bull runs on Renault since 2007, the youth of the engine partnership with Renault has led to some reliability alerts on the Barcelona side. Nothing to worry about, as Alonso is convinced that the appropriate solutions have been put in place.

« We lost some driving time but these were not serious problems. Winter testing is a bit of a weird time with two weeks going by without any real possibility of rectifying things in between. We are totally ready for this weekend. In terms of reliability, we are 100% certain of our package. Now we have to focus on performance. »