• Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying

Alonso happy F10 proved its pace

The two Ferraris qualified second and third © Getty Images

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Report - First blood to Vettel | Qualifying gallery

Fernando Alonso said he was satisfied with third on the grid and was happy the Ferrari was as quick as it had it had promised to be in testing.

Saturday's qualifying was the first time the cars had all run together on low fuel and the Ferrari set the second and third fastest times. Alonso qualified behind team-mate Felipe Massa and Sebastian Vettel but said the important thing was that the F10 was as quick as he had hoped.

"I am very happy obviously," Alonso said. "There are many things to answer in the first race, with a long winter, with a big difference in fuel loads and yesterday in practice, you never know what your competitors are running. To have both drivers in the top three means we have a very competitive car. We thought so, but you need to confirm and it has been great, a great day and it is a nice feeling to realise that we are in the fight, because you never know until qualifying.

"On my last run I lost precious time in a couple of corners, losing a couple of tenths, which can happen when you are fighting for pole. I am not surprised to find Felipe ahead of me: he is my team-mate and we all know how good he is round this track."

He added he was aiming for a strong points finish but admitted Ferrari did not have a set strategy planned for the race.

"I don't know what the strategy will be, you need to be flexible, clever enough to understand the race, understand the situation, make pitstops wherever is necessary," he said. "This will not be determined or planned, we will be very flexible."

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