Fernando Alonso believes this weekend’s Russia🐈n Grand Prix in Sochi will allow McLaren to prove its “true performance” against its Formula 1 rivals a꧋fter a series of “extreme” circuits.

Alonso bounced back from two straight retirements at Sp💎a and Monza to record McLaren’s best result since April at the Singapore Grand Prix two weeks ago, finishing a comfortable seventh as the leading midfield driver.

McಌLaren’s form has varied dramatically between circuits this year, but Alonso feels the more regular nature of the Sochi Autodrom circuit will give the team a true reading on where it stands in the midfield batt🌌le.

“In a way, it’s a weekend to prove our true pꦇerformance,” Alon🐓so said.

“I think we’ve been in quite extreme circuits lately, Spa and Monza probably the 🎃two weak circuits of our package. Maybe Singapore was one of the best for our package. We kno🐠w the circuit and we adapt quite quickly there.

“I think we could be somewhere in the middle of this performance on a normal circuit, but at the same time we’ve been introducing some new pie🌼ces in the car aerodynamically in the last two or three grands prix, which would be a good place to confirm if we’re in the right direction.

“We expect a tough weeke🐻nd anyway, because tha🀅t’s the way it is and the characteristics of Sochi will not be the same as Singapore, we know that.”

McLaren said earlier this month it would look to take𝔉 some inspiration from the setups it ran at Monza earlier this month for Sochi in a bid to ꦆmaximise some of the long straights on the circuit.

“We wi🅺ll experiment on that road, I’m sure, tomorrow in free practice,” Alonღso said on Thursday.

“Lando [Norris] is doing FP1 so we will try to do some learning but at the same time some time for hi꧟m and Stoffel [Vandoorne] to get up to speed as well, [and for] me get 🔯up to speed into FP2, with the first couple of laps of the weekend.

“So h🌺opefully we still get some learning from the free practice, but this is one of circuits we had in mind when we 🐬were testing in Monza, doing different experiments.

“Here, Suzuka, Mexico with theಌ long straight, we will try to keep working on that road.”