Briatore: Renault's title hopes finished

Fernando Alonso's best results this year have been two fifth places (Australia and Spain) and the double world champion is already 40 points behind runaway world championship leader Jenson Button. Renault meanwhile, is 75 points adrift of Brawn in the constructors' points table.

"We are not happy at all," Briatore said in Turkey. "We were expecting a different championship and we expected much better performance from our car.

"From the beginning, when we arrived in Australia, we felt a big difference between us and Brawn and you guys know what happened.

"Our team, I believe, approached the 2009 car in a totally different way and we expected to improve race-by-race if possible but the question is... for me the championship is finished already."

Briatore added that he believed Brawn already has the titles wrapped up and that the team is in a class of its own at the moment.

"It is difficult for anyone to beat Brawn, maybe Red Bull have a possibility to finish second and everybody else is fighting for third place, that is the honest situation," he said.

"We never give up, we will try to improve the car, but everybody is trying to improve the same, and that is the situation we are in.

"We need to still improve the car, we now have a chance in June/July to really, really push with this car but the situation is really difficult for us."