Alonso expected to respond to Hamilton

That is the view of three men who have worked closely with Alonso in the past and are adamant that the world champion will have had a wake-up call about the job he is going to have to do after Hamilton put him under pressure in Melbourne.

And they are all convinced that Alonso will not take Hamilton's stunning performance in Australia, where he all but matched the Spaniard in practice and qualifying and then led him for much of the race, lightly.

Spyker's technical chief Mike Gascoyne, who worked with Alonso when he was technical director at Renault, told autosport.com: "Lewis was pretty impressive in Australia. He handled the pressure well and raced well, but Fernando won't go away.

"What happened is going to push Fernando on and I think Lewis is going to have a hard season from now on."

Renault director of engineering Pat Symonds told Autosport that he is sure Alonso will have been rattled by the way in which he was unable to establish supremacy over Hamilton in Australia.

"A lot of Fernando's strength of character comes from his self-esteem. And the only times that I saw Fernando really get upset during the years he worked for us was on the days when he got beaten by his teammate.

"He would readily accept getting beaten by another car and another driver, but he always found it very difficult if he was beaten by his teammate because that attacked his fabric.

"He is an intelligent guy and, although he finished higher than Lewis, he will also look deeper and see the real picture. I think it will upset him. Of course, he will bounce back, but I'm sure he's found the situation a little bit different from what he anticipated."

Renault's technical director Bob Bell believes that Alonso's experience will likely come through when the pressure is on during the heat of the season.

"If McLaren lets them run under exactly equal conditions, then Lewis will give Fernando a good run for his money," Bell said.

"Where that might come adrift, and where Lewis' inexperience might show, is when they are under pressure, get a problem with the car or if the tyres don't work properly.

"In those situations, Fernando has the capacity and experience to know what to do and I'm sure he's come out on top. But in clean air, Lewis is bloody quick."