Alonso aims to put pressure on Red Bull

With Red Bull Racing having earlier this season failed to convert dominant qualifying form into race results, Alonso thinks there is an opportunity for him to capitalise if he can make his Milton Keynes-based rivals trip up.

"Red Bull Racing are favourites again," said Alonso in Suzuka. "The characteristics are again very good for Red Bull but it does not mean that they will win the race very easily.

"We saw this year - some circuits that were good for Red Bull, it was not a 100 percent [certain] victory for them because normally always something happened. So we need to keep pushing them.

"Of the four circuits remaining, maybe Suzuka is good for them - and then the other three are a little bit of an unknown - especially Korea. It will be tough. It will be difficult for us, but hopefully difficult for everybody else as well.

"There are five drivers with possibilities - McLaren will come back very strong, I am sure, pushing a lot in the remaining races. But it is still a very open fight."

Although Alonso has taken back-to-back victories in the Italian and Singapore Grands Prix to thrust himself back into title contention, he still thinks that consistent points scoring will be the vital thing to strive for in the remaining races of the campaign.

"It seems that you need to keep the momentum now for more races, but we saw this year that people that win two races, or have two or three podiums in a row, then they have some bad results and then they come back good," he said.

"No one had consistently six or seven races in a good level for different reasons, so we expect there will be difficult moments for us. What we need to do is be prepared for those moments, not panicking, and score as many points as possible at every race.

"We know sometimes it will be a podium, sometimes maybe a fifth position - it is in those moments when we need to be united and not panic."