Alonso glad to extend championship lead

Although he was beaten to the flag by teammate Giancarlo Fisichella, a sixth place finish for Michael Schumacher and retirement for Kimi Raikkonen allowed Alonso to open up a seven-point advantage in the title chase.

And he claims his only concern at the moment is how Raikkonen and Schumacher fare because he believes they are his main title rivals.

"This race is more important than the first race to me because of the championship points compared to Raikkonen and to Michael, who on paper will be the first two opponents in the championship," explained Alonso.

"It is good to have them at the back and to open the gap quite a big chunk here in Malaysia like I did last year in the first races. So I enjoy more these eight points. Maybe (even) more than last weekend."

When asked whether his comments about Raikkonen and Schumacher meant he did not consider Fisichella a true title rival, Alonso responded: "No, when I said this maybe you understand wrongly.

"When I said that, I thought there were four top teams - Honda, Ferrari, McLaren and Renault. And after the first race and coming from last year, I think that they (Raikkonen and Schumacher) finished second in the championship and third, and Michael and Raikkonen should be at the start of the season the ones that will be more competitive.

"But I don't consider Fisi to be my opponent. I think that we work together as we did today and we need to score points for our team and, if in the last part of the championship, in the last two or three races, (maybe) we are fighting for sure as opponents. But at the moment we are not fighting how to beat the team-mate we are thinking how to beat the other teams. "

And Alonso admits that he is unsure about how tough a challenge Ferrari can pose - especially because the team are set to have to change their front-wing for the Australian Grand Prix.

"We will see at the next race because I think they will have a slightly different car," said Alonso about Ferrari's chances. "We will see how they go.

"I think in Bahrain they were good last year even with the problems they had in 2005, they were good in Hungary, Imola, so in Bahrain it was not a surprise to see Ferrari and Michael fighting for the victory. Here we knew that it was a bit worse for them.

"Maybe in Australia they will be back and also in Imola, but hopefully not so strong as they showed in Bahrain and hopefully like last year they will have more problems and McLaren and Honda will be our opponents."