Thursday 17 April at 11:40 : Fernando Alonso has poured cold water on hopes that Renault's updated 2008 car could take a sizeable step forward at the forthcoming Spanish grand prix.

The former double world champion topped the timesheets at the Barcelona test on Wednesday, raising expectations that the R28's new bodywork package - including the Red Bull-style dorsal fin - had moved the team closer to the leading three outfits.

"The car is going better with the changes, it is true," 26-year-old Alonso told the Spanish newspaper Diario AS, after his best time was set on Bridgestone's development slick tyres.

"But we will not go forwards much -- we are still unable to escape from the middle group of the grid," he insisted.

"We have improved but the others have as well," Alonso said. "The picture is going to be more or less the same as it was before this test.

"We are in a group in which, if everything goes well, you qualify eighth, otherwise you lose time to Red Bull, Toyota and Williams and you are fourteenth," he added.

Teammate Nelson Piquet will return to the cockpit of the revised Renault on Thursday, when rain showers are expected to disrupt the final session of the test.