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Fernando Alonso says one reason McLaren-Honda will make big gains for the 2016 Formula 1 season is because it has identified concepts it can copy from rival teams.

The double F1 world champion has already predicted that his struggling team is capable of finding up to 2.5 seconds during the winter.



Asked to specify some of the gains he thought were possible, Alonso said there were areas where McLaren had diverged from the rest of the pitlane and needed to follow its rivals' lead.

"The lack of performance we have in some areas of the car is from quite fundamental issues, and they have a not too difficult solution," he said.

"We need to copy some of the directions that everyone has apart from us.

"There's some time we can recover with not much penalty because others already have it in their package.

"Some of our performance gain will be more free, let's say."

He underlined that while he expects McLaren to make winter strides, he acknowledged the rest of the field will do likewise.

"The competition will be working hard and will recover a couple of seconds too, so we need to do extra," Alonso said.

"We are confident of being competitive next year, but we are realistic too.

"We know that there are no magic things in Formula 1.

"To go from Q1 in one year to fighting for the championship in the next is very optimistic, but we will try our best."

He also feels reassured by how well McLaren's latest developments have worked, highlighting his strong pace early in the United States Grand Prix relative to Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes - albeit at a time when the world champion team was struggling with tyre problems.

"All the new parts we bring to the car seem to deliver what we expect," Alonso said.

"There is a very nice direction in the team. Austin was probably the best of race of the year for me.

"For nine of the first 20 laps I was quicker than Lewis. That hasn't happened for the last two and a half years."