Alonso not writing off McLaren, Honda

Both teams have failed to match the pace set by Renault and Ferrari in the first five races of the year, despite being tipped as favourites to dethrone Alonso and his team before the start of the season.

Although Michael Schumacher has scored two consecutive wins for Ferrari, Alonso admitted on Thursday he was not singling out the Italian squad as Renault's main rivals.

"Not much," said Alonso when asked how worried he was about Schumacher and Ferrari. "It is the same worry as I have of McLaren and Honda.

"We are still the four teams that should fight for the victory. In the first five races everything working perfectly for Ferrari and Renault and we won the five races, but McLaren and Honda have the pace.

"Honda they have been good, especially in qualifying and McLaren is normally good for the race and get close to the podium when it goes right for them. It will be a close fight and we need to work, to do as good a job as we can as we did in the first five races and the results will come at the end."

Ferrari have made a strong recovery following a shaky start to the season, and Alonso believes the Bridgestone tyres have been the main reason the Italian team are back in the title hunt.

"I think we saw that in the last two races Ferrari was coming very strong, but it's difficult to know how we develop compared to them because we have different tyres," added Alonso.

"Compared to Honda and McLaren we are still growing up at the same level as them, everyone is improving race by race but normally we are beating them.

"Ferrari we don't know how much they develop. The tyres are more important than everything else. Hopefully here we come back here fighting."

Alonso is aiming to become the first Spanish driver to win his home Grand Prix this weekend, although he admitted he will treat the weekend as always.

"It is the same," he said. "I think it is a normal race for me but obviously with much more support from the grandstands so for me it is extra motivation to race here at home and hopefully get a good result here on Sunday."

The Spanish driver said he was looking forward to stop Schumacher's run of victories, admitting beating the seven-time champion gave him extra satisfaction.

"Many times I said normally to beat the big names, the big drivers in the big cars gives you more motivation and more excitement, and Michael is a seven times champion so is nice to fight with him and if you can beat him it brings more pleasure than to beat someone else," he said.

"But to win races and overtake people is always exciting."