Fernando Alonso described the lap that got him fourth place for the Spanish Grand Prix as ‘perfect’, and was delighted to score his best grid position of the year so far for his home race.
“I did a perfect lap: I reckon that if I tried to repeat it twenty times, I could not do better!” exclaimed the Spaniard. “When you do a lap like that it's hard to put into words what one feels: always being on the limit, in every corner is a really special feeling for a driver.
“I am very happy with this result, because we have never made it to the second row this year. Sure, pole position is still a long way off: today, Red Bull was once again out of reach and we must work hard to try and get closer.
“So far, in the races we have gone better than inqualifying and so I think we can be in the fight for the podium.”
Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa continued to struggle with the balance of his car in qualifying, and could only set the eighth fastest time in Q3.
“This was definitely not the qualifying performance we were expecting, but all weekend long we have struggled with the balance of the car: we would have needed to be perfect to start a bit further up the order and that was not the case,” said the Brazilian. “Let's hope that, on full tanks, the car works better and then we can see if we can get a good result.”
“It is clear we suffer more than the others on the hard tyres,” he added. “Overtaking? We will definitely see more than in the past at a circuit like this and that will mainly be down to tyre degradation.”
