Alonso prefers to start from third place

Fernando Alonso is counting on the unpredictability factor and assumes that tyres will play a major role: "Tyre wear seems greater here than at other tracks, so we've got to manage them well, as far as strategy is concerned. The soft compound affords more grip, whilst our problem with the hard tyres is that we can never get them to work properly. Maybe we'll need more than one pit stop tomorrow."

Quite apart from that, he was very pleased with qualifying and had the same thoughts as Domenicali: "After missing pole, it was better to be third and not second, because starting from the dirty side would be very difficult."