Alonso not expecting progress by Ferrari F1 team in Bahrain GP

The Spaniard finished fourth in each of the first two races of the new season, but criticised his Ferrari's lack of competitiveness both times.

He says the Scuderia is working hard to close the deficit to pacesetters Mercedes and Red Bull, but reckons the short gap between last weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix and the forthcoming race at Sakhir will make it difficult for Ferrari to make inroads.

"For Bahrain I don't think it will change too much the picture from here," Alonso said.

"Obviously, in a few days we are on track, so the cars will be more or less similar.

"Track characteristics are a little bit different. With long straights probably we will see a car with very good top speed will be competitive.

"It's going to be tough again, but somehow we manage always to be in the top five, which at the moment with the performance we have is giving us some good points."

Although Alonso finished roughly 35 seconds behind the winning Mercedes for the second consecutive race, the double world champion said Ferrari had closed the gap to the frontrunners in Malaysia.

"We were a little bit faster than we saw in Melbourne," he added.

"It's true we finished 35s behind Rosberg in Melbourne, but there we had a safety car.

"Without that safety car maybe we were one minute behind Mercedes. Now we are 35s, which is still not good and we need to do better.

"In Bahrain, unfortunately I see not much to do in terms of magic changes, because it's only five days, but no one in the team is giving up.

"We know what we need to do, we have the potential, we have the talented people, [and] we have the resources."