'Even Alonso couldn't save us'

"Fernando is a great driver but at the moment we need more than a second and there are no drivers who can be a second quicker than everyone else," Italian Giancarlo Fisichella told reporters at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

"So even with Fernando, it would be exactly the same story. I don't think it is because he has left that we are going down."

Alonso, champion for the past two seasons with Renault, joined McLaren at the end of last year.

The 25-year-old Spaniard returned to the top of the championship after leading McLaren, who had not won a race since 2005, to a one-two finish in Malaysia last weekend.

Fisichella and Finnish rookie Heikki Kovalainen have struggled to score. After two races, Renault are fourth in the championship with eight points.

Both qualified outside the top 10 at Sepang, with Fisichella finishing sixth and Kovalainen eighth for his first point in F1.

Neither expected anything different for Sunday's race, despite Renault winning there in both 2005 and 2006 with Alonso and on Michelin tyres. The departure of the French manufacturer has hit them harder than others forced to switch to sole supplier Bridgestone.

"Still the pace is quite far away. We've got poor traction, poor grip overall. In the qualifying session, the gap between us and the leaders was one and a half seconds and in the race around a second," said Fisichella.

"Sometimes we are there, sometimes we are completely lost. At the moment we are far away from getting on the podium, not to win the race. We are struggling to score some points, it's quite tough," he added.

"But you never know. In the factory they are really, really pushing to improve the car. Sometimes you need maybe a month, and with a couple of right changes you gain a second. Sometimes you completely lose direction and you spend a season (trying to catch up),? said Fisichella.

With Bahrain following immediately after Malaysia, there is nothing any team can do to improve their cars substantially. That will have to wait for the return to Europe and the resumption of testing.

"For this race we are going to have exactly the same car as in Malaysia," said Fisichella. "So we just can expect again to fight to score points, unless the circuit is good for us but I'm not so optimistic of that."

Kovalainen, the test driver last year, agreed that Bahrain would be very similar to Malaysia "unless there has been a miracle happening, that we don't know about.

"I think this weekend the gap to the leaders is going to be more or less the same."