Fernando Alonso reckons if Ferrari do "everything perfectly" they can reach the podium in Sunday's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The Spaniard will start Sunday's 55-lap fifth on the grid after yet again failing to take the challenge to the Red Bulls and McLarens.
However, the Ferrari driver is confident that his car's race-pace is better than what it can do over a single lap.
"We are more or less where we expected to be going into the session," Alonso said.
"It's not because this is the eighth time out of 18 qualifying sessions that I have ended up fifth. It's that all year long, with a few rare exceptions, McLaren and Red Bull are stronger than us on Saturday, while on Sunday the situation is usually different, with the gaps between us being much closer.
"We know we can fight for the podium, but to succeed, we will have to do everything perfectly, beginning with the start and our strategy."
As for his qualifying performance, Alonso revealed that he had intended to do just one run but after that didn't yield the results he had hoped for, the Spaniard went out again, securing fifth place.
"In Q3, I thought of doing just one run, but then the first one was not perfect and we preferred to try everything right to the end.
"I don't think it would have made such a difference having a new set of tyres tomorrow, also because the degradation does not seem that high.
"Maybe the best time could have come on the second or third flying lap, but going down that route would have compromised our strategy, as we would have to start on tyres that were more worn than those of our rivals.
"I will start from the clean side of the track and hope to make up some places: the first lap is a good window of opportunity.
"Tomorrow it will be interesting to see how the tyres will behave from the start to the finish of the race, as the temperature drops."
Alonso also spoke of Ferrari's decision to revert to the old Singapore-spec front wing after Felipe Massa's was once again fluttering and sending sparks.
"Mine worked well all weekend, but the team decided to move back with Felipe.
"In one sense it's positive, because we will have an even greater amount of data to compare in order to get a good understanding of this new component.
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