Happy to be back, double world champ affirms, even if we may not be battling for race wins this year.
Fernando Alonso has underlined how much more comfortable he feels having returned to former team Renault for the 2008 Formula 1 campaign, though he continued to downplay his hopes for the season ahead with the French outfit.
The Spaniard famously endured a troubled year at McLaren-Mercedes in 2007 - punctuated by very public rows with both team boss Ron Dennis and team-mate Lewis Hamilton - and has since gone back to Renault, with whom he claimed both his world championship successes in 2005 and 2006. Though he has also in so doing in all likelihood ruled himself out of contention for another title bid this year, he insists he has absolutely no regrets about leaving the Woking-based concern.
"Inside McLaren there were so many people that it was difficult to know who to turn to," he confessed, speaking to Spanish radio station Cadena SER. "There is a much better environment here with fewer people, which makes you feel more comfortable and you know exactly who is in charge.
"The team is better [than the one he left at the end of 2006], but it has suffered and continues to suffer with the adaptation to Bridgestone tyres. Up to now, though, the R28 has been a good surprise."
Alonso has repeatedly made a point of his belief that Renault will not be in the mix for race wins this season, and perhaps not even rostrum finishes. Whilst seeking to once more re-iterate that caution, he did acknowledge that it would dim neither his motivation nor his effort to drive the Régie back to the top. He rated his level of morale as ten-out-of-ten, but his optimism only seven.
"I continue saying that it's an insanity to think it, but always you begin with the motivation of winning," the 26-year-old asserted. "I have a 30 per cent chance of being champion.
"When I signed for Renault I knew it was a team that was almost two seconds off the pace in Brazil. Already I knew with that difference [in performance] it would be really complicated to have a winning car; I already knew that the beginning was going to be difficult.
"Saying we should be between seventh and ninth on the grid in Melbourne is not pessimistic. What is certain is that we lack that little bit - four tenths or half a second - to be able to fight for the podium.
"With that handicap is it impossible to qualify among the top five. If you are in the top five, any failures for those above elevate you to the podium, but at the moment that is insurmountable."
Though the R28 showed encouraging form in early testing, in Barcelona this week both Alonso and new rookie team-mate Nelsinho Piquet have languished some way shy of the leading pace - and indeed well outside the top ten on the timesheets on day two. The man from Oviedo was keen to pour cold water on the significance of the times, however, and also dismissed suggestions that he may encounter similar problems with Piquet to those he had with Hamilton last year.
"In testing you are always trying out new things," he explained, "and sometimes they make the car go worse. That's still positive though, because it permits you to rule them out, but at times if you leave them on the car all day it damages you in terms of the timesheets.
"Yesterday, for example, we ran with some different experimental brakes that the engineers had believed would improve the reliability without damaging the braking power. We tested them, but they made the car worse.
"[With Piquet] I am quite calm, there are no troubles and it is quiet and smooth. I did fear [the presence of his father] a little for what they had said about him in the press, but to the contrary; he does not even appear at the circuit."
