Alonso on McLaren's season: We are very confident

Fernando Alonso has insisted that the mood in the McLaren camp is completely different to that of the past three seasons now that the team has ditched their unreliable Honda engines in favour of the more powerful Renault unit, and revealed that the team is 'very confident' of having a positive campaign.

The Spaniard has not won the driver's championship for well over a decade in Formula One, while McLaren have not even claimed a podium position in four years. For the team, this has largely been attributed to their partnership with Honda which was marred by continuous engine reliability issues.

Now that Renault is powering McLaren and not Honda, Alonso has insisted that the confidence is flowing behind the scenes.

"We are very confident," Alonso said.

"I think at McLaren we have made a few changes for this year, the most obvious being the power unit with the Renault, which I think is quite a high motivation now in the team.

"The mood for all of us is quite different this year compared to the last three years. We always had expectations that the season could be a good one for us. But I think this year we have more facts than any previous years, that they were only hopes. This year we have more numbers that we can touch, finally.

"We would like to be on the podiums. We'd like to be fighting for race wins if the opportunity arrives and I think the team now is ready. After three years of struggling, three years of hard learning, you are more prepared.

"I think if you have three or one domination year, one time you're not that competitive or you don't have that advantage, you are not able to deliver. I think the struggle that we had in the last three years made the team very strong and completely ready for a fight."

These thoughts were echoed by McLaren executive chairman Zak Brown, who claimed that the new MCL33 model has been passing testing stages with flying colours.

"Everything is going really well on car design," Brown said. "We have the engine in the back, we have just passed our crash tests and that all went according to plan. We will launch the car on February 23 and we will be on track for the first time in February 26.

"All the simulation we are doing is where we want to be over last year. Sometimes it works in simulation and doesn't work when it hits the race track, but it did [work] more often than not last year, so I think we're going to be in for a strong season."