Despite gaining increasing respect for his performances with the dreadful F14T, Fernando Alonso insists it is titles rather than plaudits that he craves.

For some time now, despite mostly anonymous drives, Kimi Raikkonen has represented the true competitiveness of Ferrari's 2014 contender. On the other hand, teammate Alonso has dug deep, flattering the performance of the Maranello car with a series of determined, solid drives.

However, the Spaniard doesn't want to be constantly told how well he is performing in an uncompetitive car, he wants to be winning races and titles in a machine worthy of his talent.

"There is always the satisfaction that everyone believes you are performing at your best," said the Spaniard, according to the BBC. "There is the respect from drivers, team principals, fans for the job that we do. But I prefer to have no respect and to win more trophies."

Following another strong performance that saw him beaten into fifth by his former teammate, Felipe Massa, the Spaniard is hoping that the changes being introduced by new team boss Marco Mattiacci will soon start to have an impact.

"We made some progress on the car," he said. "But it is difficult to judge what the others are doing every race and how much they improve as well, nothing we can do there. We just need to work better than the others to close the gap with Mercedes which at the moment is the reference point.

"All the other teams will go up and down, including us," he continued, "and hopefully we have the resources, technology and people to make some extra progress compared to the others."

While few would forgive him for looking elsewhere, the Spaniard remains loyal to the Italian team and insists things could turn around next season.

"Yes. In one year, many things can happen," he said. "And I expect 2015 will be again a big step from everyone including Mercedes. So we all will be better and definitely the teams that start with a lower baseline have more margin to improve and we will get closer or at the level of Mercedes. That's our hope and intention."

Anyone else get the feeling that he's whistling in the dark?

Chris Balfe