Alonso not expecting to match top teams

The Spaniard has won the last two races in Singapore and Fuji and will start Sunday's race from fourth position, behind McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and the two Ferrari drivers.

But the Renault driver reckons his team are not as strong as in the previous two races, although he admitted he will be ready to seize the opportunity if the leaders fail like in Japan.

"I think we are a bit slower here," said Alonso after qualifying. "I don't think we can fight wheel to wheel with them, but we are going to try to secure fourth place in the constructors' championship, and finish ahead of Toyota which is enough.

"And if they do what they did in Fuji again I'll try to take advantage of it."

Alonso said the team were worried ahead of qualifying after some overnight changes did not pay off in the morning's practice session.

"We did some changes overnight and they didn't work well this morning," said Alonso after qualifying. "

We tried to work on them with no results so we arrived in qualifying a little worried, so the safest thing was to go back to what we had yesterday, cross our fingers and hope that it would be okay and it went okay."

Teammate Nelson Piquet will start from 11th position.