Fernando Alonso says he is confident his Ferrari team can compete with Kimi Raikkonen and Lotus, the winners of the season's first race. The Spaniard was beaten by Raikkonen into second place on Sunday in Australia but he expects to be more competitive in Malaysia this weekend.

"Lotus's pace was very good but nothing that we could not do," Alonso said.

"They had a clean race and a good strategy but the pace was not out of reach. Here we can fight a bit closer."

Alonso, who has narrowly missed out on the world championship to Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel in two of the last three years, said his strong start to the season had convinced him he could compete for the title again.

"We have a more or less competitive car. In Australia everything worked quite fine for us and we show a good potential," he said.