Fernando Alonso believes he got the most out of his Ferrari F14T after posting four almost identical lap times during the top ten shoot-out for pole position.
The Spaniard will start seventh, but throughout practice it looked as though he would end up closer to the Mercedes duo. However he believes higher fuel loads and engine performance make for misleading times.
“It was a nice session for me, I think,” he said after. “It’s difficult after free practice because we always create some optimism because we seem to be always a little more competitive – probably we run different fuel loads compare to our opponents.
“In qualifying we know they [Mercedes-powered cars] turn up the engine and are a little bit quicker than us normally so we expected a tough qualifying and it was. I was completely on the limit today. I had two runs in Q2 and two runs in Q3 and I did four identical lap times, so I could put 100 sets of tyres on and I would do identical timed laps.”
Alonso is the highest placed non-Mercedes powered car and he reckons that proves he got the maximum out of the car considering team-mate Kimi Raikkonen qualified 12th.
“It was absolutely the maximum and it was positive for me because I see two Mercedes, two Williams, two McLarens, one Ferrari, two Red Bulls, so personally I think I struck the maximum. The important thing is to do a good race tomorrow.”
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