Alonso thinks McLaren can 'taste the champagne' again

Fernando Alonso has admitted that he is confident McLaren can bounce back from their spell devoid of success this upcoming season and once again 'taste the champagne' with podium places, having not claimed a place on the steps in four F1 seasons.

Both Alonso and McLaren have not had much success recently, with the driver not winning a world championship for 12 years and the constructor team not winning for 20 years.

Over the past three seasons, their lack of wins has been attributed to their badly performing Honda engines, which have since been scrapped in favour of Renault.

Alonso believes this change can catalyse a move up the rankings for his team.

“In terms of results, it is always going to be difficult to predict,” Alonso confessed.

“This is Formula 1, it is not mathematical that you know in advance. Anything can happen. Even the favourite ones, the champions, Mercedes cannot guarantee that in 2018 they will be fastest.

“But we are quite optimistic, we know what Red Bull is doing with the Renault power unit, they are maybe not the fastest in qualifying but they are quite fast in the race. They’ve been on a couple of podiums, they won two or three races, so with those kinds of results I think we will be very happy. If we are in the fight and if we can taste the champagne again.”

The Spaniard looked back on the three unsuccessful seasons under the Honda engines, and revealed his admiration for the team behind the scenes who were forced to work with underperforming parts.

“I think in the last three years we all changed here in the team," Alonso continued.

"We all had some tough moments, we learned things, hard lessons sometimes because we had some painful retirements. The team now is ready to perform at the best.

“The biggest thing I learned in the last three years was the speed of the team, they never give up, they were very united, very constructive, working flat out to bring even half a tenth for the next race even if we were fighting for 16th. That spirit in the team was remarkable, its something that I will keep for the long term.”