Alonso: Renault must catch Red Bull

The double world champion qualified sixth on the grid for tomorrow's British Grand Prix, but his factory car was outpaced by Mark Webber's customer Renault-powered Red Bull by nearly 0.5 seconds.

And with Renault currently seventh in the constructors' table, 12 points behind Red Bull, Alonso says the French squad must react quickly if they are to remain competitive in the tight battle for fourth place behind Ferrari, BMW Sauber and McLaren.

"Red Bull now have 24 points in the constructors' championship - and we have only 12, Mark Webber has 18 points and I have 10 points - so they are ahead of us," he said. "They have performed really well to be on the front row of the grid tomorrow, but the whole season has been like that. It is not a frustration only today.

"It is just a motivation for us, because we know the engine is not too bad because Red Bull Racing are at the front - so it is a motivation for us to improve our car."

Alonso added that the pace of all four Red Bull-owned cars at Silverstone - Sebastian Vettel qualified eighth for Scuderia Toro Rosso - was an indication of the performance level of the Adrian Newey-inspired RB4, and that Renault needed to develop their R28 to reduce the gap to their closest competitors.

"I think we did improve the car a little bit in the last two races but maybe not enough because Red Bull Racing are clearly ahead of us on this track," he said. "Toyota were ahead of us in Magny-Cours, so it depends on the layout of the circuit and the conditions of the weekend.

"I think the Red Bull has been performing well all weekend," he added. "Yesterday they were quick, and this morning as well. Q1 and Q2 with the same fuel for everybody, they were ahead of most of the people.

"Also Toro Rosso, that car is performing well here because they were really strong in qualifying. So they did well and for sure we need to improve the next coming races because Red Bull is one of our opponents this year and we need to be in front of them more often."

Asked how much resource Renault should devote to developing this year's car, given the large breadth of rule changes in place for 2009, Alonso replied: "I don't know. This is a question for the team. I am answering this question about the R28 and the R29 at every press conference and it is not my decision and it is not my job.

"It is a compromise. You need to work on next year's car because there is a big change of regulations. But at the same time you cannot forget 2008, because you need to finish in a good position in the constructors' championship - at least to have a good confidence and a good budget for next year.

"So you need to do both things at the same time."