The 24-year-old Renault driver made history last year by becoming the youngest title-winner in the long history of the sport, and says victory in the first of 18 Grands Prix would be the ideal way to start the season.

"Defending a championship is going to be harder than winning the first one because there is a lot more added pressure on you," Alonso said.

"Testing has been going well though and I think definitely we can fight for a win in Bahrain and if we do that then we can fight for the championship as well."

With Alonso's departure to McLaren in 2007 confirmed last December, much of the development work on this year's car will fall to his team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella.

The Italian though, a winner of two races, is confident of putting the world champion under more pressure this year than last.

Meanwhile, Alonso's closest rival for the title last year, Kimi Raikkonen, of Finland, has endured a difficult winter of testing and has encountered numerous gearbox failures on his McLaren.

His Colombian team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya is almost certain to challenge Raikkonen more than last year now that he has fully recovered from a shoulder injury that blighted much of his 2005 campaign.

Schumacher determined to bounce back

After a disastrous season in which they only won one race, Ferrari's Michael Schumacher is determined to bounce back to the front in what could be his final year in Formula 1.

Seven-time world champion Schumacher finished only third in last year's championship and scored 71 points less than champion Alonso.

The 37-year-old German refutes that the team have wasted valuable testing days by evaluating the progress of Italian Moto GP star Valentino Rossi and believes the extra testing Ferrari carried out in Bahrain in February will be a prove a big advantage when free practice gets underway on Friday.

"The test wasn't only good for us for preparing for the race, but also for the tyres - it will definitely be easier going to Bahrain now that we know what tyres to bring," he said.

"Certainly I don't want another year like last year. I love winning and we didn't do much of that last year.

"The testing has been good and Bridgestone have got the tyres working the way we need them to, so I think we should do better this year than last."

Button's year?

The man who might well be wearing the biggest smile when the teams leave the Middle East nation following Sunday's race, is Honda's Jenson Button.

Button, who scored points in all of the last 10 races of 2005 when the team were known as BAR, has set the pace in more official tests than any other driver this winter.

The 25-year-old Englishman has been surprised that Honda seem to have come out best in adapting to the new 2.4 litre V8 engine rules and is determined to win his first Grand Prix at his 101st attempt in Bahrain.

"We want to be challenging for wins," said Button. "If you are going to try to be challenging for the championship and for wins during the year, you need to start at the first race, and that's Bahrain.

"We are more ready than we have been in any other year, so, to go to Bahrain, you have to say will be hoping to challenge for a win. We will be very disappointed if that isn't the case."

Toyota had the best season of their short F1 history in 2005 as they finished fourth in the constructors world championship, but drivers Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher have both played down their team's chances of improving drastically on last year's efforts.

BMW have completed their buy-out of the Sauber team and the new BMW Sauber operation will run Canada's 1997 champion Jacques Villeneuve and German Nick Heidfeld — who has defected from Williams.

After losing their BMW engine supply, Williams are once more an independent team and will use Cosworth engines to power Australian Mark Webber and newcomer Nico Rosberg, the son of 1982 champion Keke Rosberg, and last year's GP2 series title-winner.

A pair of bulls

Red Bull Racing will again run 13-time race winner David Coulthard of Scotland, and Austrian Christian Klien in their team which will now use Ferrari V8 engines.

The team will be looking to improve on last year's impressive debut season after recruiting design guru Adrian Newey from McLaren as their chief technical officer.

The other Red Bull-owned team, Scuderia Toro Rosso, who were known as Minardi last year before being sold by enigmatic team boss Paul Stoddart, will field Italian driver Vitantonio Liuzzi and young American newcomer Scott Speed.

Super Aguri F1 will debut this weekend after a winter in which many people doubted whether the squad would enter the series at all.

Fronted by Aguri Suzuki — the first Japanese driver to stand on a Formula 1 podium (at the 1991 Japanese Grand Prix) — the team will also field an all-Japanese driver line-up.

Takuma Sato (29) has joined after two years with BAR and will partner rookie driver Yuji Ide (31) who has moved up from Japanese Formula Nippon, where he finished second last year.

AFP