Alonso measuring McLaren again 'Ferrari replica' Haas

Fernando Alonso was not surprised to see Haas perform well in Friday's practice sessions ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, suggesting Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen are benefitting from driving a "replica" of the Ferrari which win last year's race.

Haas turned heads with an impressive pre-season performance in Barcelona and Grosjean went sixth quickest in Friday's second session, just two tenths adrift of the 2017 race-winner Sebastian Vettel.

McLaren are also making strides in 2018 after ditching Honda power units for Renault.

Alonso was eighth-quickest - half a second down on Grosjean's best time - and says Haas will provide McLaren with a benchmark during the early weeks of the season.

"We knew that Haas was probably the biggest surprise, they have obviously a Ferrari replica from last year and that was the car that won here last year," he said.

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Hamilton carries on where he left off, as Haas and McLaren mix with the 'big three' #AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/T3MrGezIFM — Formula 1 (@F1) March 23, 2018

"I think their car will be very strong in this first part of the season but hopefully we will be able to stay close to them. It's difficult to know what each team did today but it looks like Haas is behind the top three teams.

"We'll definitely get better and better, that's logical. We are the only the only team doing this fundamental change in the car, with a new power unit, so we will get better and better. But hopefully we'll also be competitive from day one here.

"I haven't looked at the sector times yet, so we will look at everything overnight and analyse it, to try to understand what are the strong points of this car and what are the weaknesses to try and solve them."

Rain is forecast across the weekend, leaving Alonso eyeing up potential gains in qualifying and the race.

"We need to be ready, be flexible, because reliability and being on the track at the right moment will be the key, especially in wet conditions," he said.

"We need to be smart, we need to be sharp to maximise every opportunity we may have."