While the rest of us try to work out the true standing order of the teams, and with just over three week's before the first free practice session of the 2008 season, two-time World Champion, Fernando Alonso, claims it is unlikely that he will be standing on the podium in Melbourne.

"We are pretty far behind," he told Spain's As newspaper at Barcelona. "We are not in a position to fight for anything important right now. Thinking about a podium (in Melbourne) would be too optimistic at the moment. Today, thinking about it coldly, getting on the podium is a dream."

However, before his fans, and those of Renault, give in, believing that 2008 will be a repeat of 2007, when the French outfit was left to pick up the crumbs left by Ferrari, McLaren and BMW, the Spaniard insists that he is not writing off the season, far from it.

"Everything changes very quickly in Formula One," he said. "Two or three weeks ago BMW were a little bit behind, we were close to them. Now they are very close to McLaren.

"They are going very fast," he added, referring to the German team, currently testing alone at Valencia. "They have not shown their cards. They are running with the tank full and are doing very good times."

Some claim that the French team is sandbagging, deliberately down-playing its performance, leading to fans speculating that the two-time champion will be mixing it with the leaders in Australia.

Asked if he was being pessimistic regarding his team's performance, the Spaniard replied: "I just want to tone down the euphoria I see in the media. As far as my spirit is concerned I feel a thousand times better than I did a few months ago."