Fernando Alonso is convinced he will be a better driver by the end of what has so far been a frustrating season on his return to Renault.
After three years fighting for grand prix wins and championships, Alonso now finds himself in the relatively unaccustomed position of being in a midfield scrap.
Renault have failed to make the progress expected of them after a 2007 to primarily forget as the crown they so gloriously won the previous two years slipped alarmingly.
In fact, Renault's points tally of six from the opening three races of this year is three worse than at the same stage last season when Alonso was at McLaren.
After a fourth-placed finish in Australia and eighth in Malaysia, Alonso endured a wretched weekend in Bahrain, hampered primarily by Lewis Hamilton driving into the back of him on lap two.
Alonso, though, is confident the old adage of learning more from adversity will hold true for him.
‘This year has so far been frustrating, but in a way it is a new challenge and I need to learn from it,’ remarked Alonso.
‘Right now we're always in the middle of the group, starting in tenth or 11th position which is very difficult, fighting, overtaking.
‘So I need to learn from it, and then by the end of the year I will be a better driver.’
However, for the 26-year-old Spaniard there was little learned from his weekend in Bahrain adding: ‘I was expecting a bad race, and it was a very bad race.
‘It was very, very difficult, but then we knew it would be like that because all weekend was very bad, other than getting into Q3 which was a nice surprise.
‘But the rest of it was not good enough, not up to our levels, and we were struggling and behind all the teams we are fighting with - Red Bull and Toyota.
‘We cannot be happy with the result, and now we are in a pessimistic situation because these first few races have not been as good as expected.
‘I'm not saying we were aiming for a podium or anything like that, but we didn't think trying to get into the points would be so difficult.
‘In Bahrain we were around 12 or 13th position throughout practice and qualifying, so we need to make a bigger step.’
Like every other team, Renault have worked on major upgrades for their cars over the past few weeks, leaving Alonso to appreciably hope their improvements are more significant than their rivals.
‘There is a new package for the test ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix,’ added Alonso on the three-day test due to take place at the Circuit de Catalunya next week.
‘We are confident we will improve the car, but it is a question of how much the others improve as well.
‘But right now we are right to be concerned with our performance.’
