Fernando Alonso says the only way Honda can win in Formula One is by taking a different approach to current champions Mercedes.

Honda returned to F1 as McLaren's engine supplier at the start of this year, but has made a slow start as it attempts to debug its new power unit. At the first two races the new V6 turbo and ERS has run in a state of detune to try to make the end of the race and McLaren's performance has suffered as a result.

McLaren has been keen to draw attention to its "size zero" packaging at the rear of the MP4-30, which is a direct result of the path Honda has taken with its power unit. At the weekend Honda boss Yasuhisa Arai explained that his team of engineers were only half way up a "high mountain" in their pursuit of maximum performance, but Alonso, who had to retire from his first race with an ERS cooling issue, is completely behind its approach.

"It's a long way to go for us and we have started now quite far behind, but I have so much trust and confidence in this team," Alonso said. "We have a talented team of engineers inside McLaren and we have seen the progress inside McLaren and we saw the progress in the last few weeks. To beat Mercedes you need to do something special and not to copy them or follow them because then you will be behind all the time."

Although McLaren qualified on the second to last row in Malaysia and failed to finish with either car, the team is confident it made progress and cut the deficit to the front by well over a second. Further progress is expected at each and every round and Alonso still believes the team can challenge for podiums in as little as two months.

"It will take some time, but we are growing up together and there are a lot of young people in the team and a lot of Japanese coming new to this world of Formula One. We will look in a couple of months when we are in the points and the podium or something and we will tell each other it was an exciting trip and we are doing it together."