Fernando Alonso says it will be very difficult for Honda's rivals to copy its ideas once the Japanese manufacturer starts to perform.

Honda's return to Formula One with McLaren has been marred by failures and a lack of performance, leaving Alonso and McLaren team-mate Jenson Button at the back of the grid this year. Honda's compact power unit is due for an overhaul in Japan over the winter, but the company is keen to keep the project in-house and is reluctant to hire experienced help from rival manufacturers.

The isolated engine project could be seen as a weakness, but Alonso believes the ideas coming out of Japan will set his car apart from the rest of the field when they come to fruition.

"It can be a weakness or it can be the winning formula," Alonso said. "I choose to believe it is the winning formula. If we want to copy what Mercedes do, you will only ever be close to Mercedes, you won't beat Mercedes.

"So being there, isolated with another culture, discipline and work ethic has been difficult maybe this year because some of the processes have been slower than what they could be, but some of the ideas we have had are very unique in the paddock. If we make them work it will be difficult for anyone to copy."

Honda F1 boss Yasuhisa Arai said he has already pinpointed the power unit's weaknesses and has put the wheels in motion to improve in those areas.

"Already the team knows where are the strong points and where are the weak points," Arai said. "So we will improve the weak points and catch up with the other teams. Maybe after that we get stronger and more competitive. The concept is already one we have shared, discussed and confirmed."

Honda's latest engine update has been slowly introduced over the last four rounds after first running in a practice session at the Russian Grand Prix. Alonso said it has not made a big difference to overall power output, but has laid the foundations for 2016's improvements.

"The whole of the phase four engine is to prepare next year's philosophy of the engine in terms of other aspects internally," Alonso added. "It was not the pure power that we introduced, it's much more than that and everything is working as we expect.

"That's another positive sign for next year, but we need to wait and see because there is a lot of lap time in the ERS, a lot of lap time in the ICE and definitely a lot to improve on the reliability because we have seven or eight DNFs and 11 engines in one season. This is something we need to put in place."