Although the Spaniard against all the odds actually went into Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix in the lead of the standings after a brilliant wet-weather win in Malaysia, ninth place finishes in both qualifying and the race in Shanghai more accurately reflected Ferrari's current predicament.

Alonso remains a strong third in the early-season standings, just eight points adrift of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton at the top, yet concedes the bare facts of Ferrari's form across the three races so far tells its own story.

"We don't think in the championship at the moment," he said after Sunday's race.

"We are P9, P13. We were out of Q3 four times of six [attempts], in terms of two cars, in three races.

"So I don't think that no one can think in terms of the championship at the moment [with] what we have in our hands.

"It's good to be third in the championship now; it was very good to lead the championship coming here... I think until we have a competitive car in our hands we have to be honest with ourselves."

Alonso, though, doesn't think ninth place on Sunday was truly representative of the F2012's pace in race conditions, the Spaniard having left his final pit stop right behind Lewis Hamilton - who finished third - only to exit into the middle of two-stopping rivals.

"I think the potential of the car was not as bad [as] it seems the position [reflects]," the Spaniard said.

"I guess in front of [Pastor] Maldonado, [Romain] Grosjean and [Bruno] Senna we could arrive, so maybe P6 was more of a realistic target for us today.

"But going for a three-stop you find yourself in traffic in the last one [stint]. So if you go for three you have to overtake and with the top-speed we have at the moment that's not an easy thing to do. In fact all of the overtaking moves I did were in turn one.

"So that was compromising I think our three=-stop strategy because when we left the pits after our third stop [we were] with Hamilton fighting and he finished third and we finished ninth."