Red Bull win puts pressure on McLaren - Alonso

Fernando Alonso believes Red Bull's victory in the Malaysia Grand Prix puts pressure on McLaren when it receives the Renault power unit in 2018.

McLaren will join Red Bull as a Renault customer next season after ending its Honda partnership early, with the Japanese manufacturer switching to Toro Rosso. Following Max Verstappen's victory at Sepang, Alonso says the standard Red Bull has set is a high one for McLaren to match.

"We also saw in Monza a very good performance from Red Bull, which was at a power circuit, so we were already quite happy with that Red Bull performance," Alonso said. "But Malaysia iwas another step forward and they beat the Mercedes without rain, without any different strategy, without anything, so that was good.

"At the same time that puts some pressure on McLaren, because I think that car is quite efficient right now and is quite powerful at the moment from a chassis point of view, so we need to make sure that we do our job on the chassis side because the engine can deliver wins as Red Bull proved. So we have to match that performance on the chassis and that is a challenge, for sure.

"I think the challenge is how can McLaren be in front? But McLaren should never be afraid of matching any other team because McLaren should be better than any other team."

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After a poor showing at Suzuka last year, Alonso also says he is keen to deliver a strong performance at this weekend's Japanese Grand Prix for Honda.

"Last year we came here with some hopes to do well but we ended up with one car out in Q1, one car out in Q2 and then we were quite bad in the race. So definitely we want to improve that performance, especially as it's the last race with Honda here.

"After the last three years with all the difficulties and with all the lack of results I am still very proud of this collaboration. This project and it would be nice to finish it with a nice race here in front of our fans.

"We are a little bit more optimistic after Malaysia, because to have both cars in Q3 there was unexpected. So we are now a little bit more optimistic, but we still have to be a bit concerned that the power sensitivity here is quite high and we will struggle, but hopefully not too much compared to Malaysia and we can repeat some kind of performance."

Asked how he reflects on the past three years with Honda, Alonso replied: "It meant a lot. I've always loved Japan from the past, I have a samurai tattoo on my back and to work with a Japanese manufacturer was quite intense. It was special – it was a different way of working. We didn't succeed in our targets and deliver the results that everyone was hoping, and that's a shame. We are sad for that, but I'm still proud of the work that the team achieved with all the difficulties we found in winter testing.

"We tried to overcome all those problems in as short a period as possible and I will always be proud of this project, even if the lack of results will say the opposite and will be remembered as a bad and frustrating time, which it was – it is now. But I really hope the best for McLaren in the future and for Honda, because both of them deserve it after the last three years."