Alonso satisfied with Renault progress

Fresh from his surprise victory in the Singapore Grand Prix, Alonso believes the pace shown by his R28 in the early practice sessions at Fuji gives him reason to feel bullish about the prospects for the rest of the year.

"Obviously in Singapore we were a little bit more competitive, and I think here we get back to reality and are struggling a little bit more, but the car is better and better every race," he said when asked by autosport.com about the team's progress.

"At a circuit like this, three or four months ago, it would have been a big, big problem for us - and we would have been nowhere. Now we can have a competitive time in any circuit, in any condition. The team did a very good job and the result is this. Maybe now we are just behind Ferrari and McLaren in the last three or four grands prix."

Renault technical director Bob Bell said after Singapore that he felt the French car manufacturer had now fully recovered from the problems they suffered in switching to Bridgestone at the start of last season, and Alonso has praised the efforts the team have put in to make that happen.

"We thought to be at this level in Australia, just behind Ferrari and McLaren, but we found ourselves too far behind - in the middle of the pack," he said, looking back at this season.

"We try to analyse our problems and we worked hard to get the key points of the car to make the progress during the season. We concentrated on those areas and the car did improve every race, and now we seem more competitive. Unfortunately there are only three races to go."

Despite his delight at the steps forward made this year, Alonso remains unsure about what to expect for 2009.

"Every team or every manager of any team will be very optimistic now about next year's car, but there are still some concerns for the new regulations. All the teams have to work very hard and in a clever way to understand better the regulations, especially the KERS system and things like that. This is the main thing for next year."

And he feels that the FIA's decision to equalise engines will make the field even more open than it has been in 2008.

"Obviously if they equalise the engines it will be better for the races, because maybe more teams are involved in race victories and the championship is more open. Not only two teams will fight for championships, so maybe it is a good idea."