Fernando Alonso says Ferrari's qualifying positions in Korea are a true picture of where they are in the pecking order - behind McLaren and Red Bull.
While McLaren, for the first time this season, challenged and beat Red Bull to pole position, Ferrari were nowhere near the fight.
Felipe Massa was the best-placed driver in qualifying, finishing in fifth place, while Alonso was second. Both drivers, though, were over a full second behind pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton.
"I can't be happy with sixth, but the position reflects our current situation: McLaren and Red Bull are stronger than us so it just leaves us to fight between ourselves for fifth and sixth places," Alonso said.
"That's how Saturday goes, but maybe tomorrow will end up like Sunday in Suzuka and we will find ourselves again fighting for the win."
The Spaniard is hoping that the expected high wear of the Pirelli tyres will play into Ferrari's hands come Sunday's grand prix but, he concedes that with so little dry running, it's not easy to tell.
"When tyre degradation is very high, usually we are in good shape, but here the situation is not very clear, as the behaviour of the Supersofts over a long run and on full tanks is still an unknown quantity.
"Unfortunately, I start from the dirty side of the grid, which should be a major disadvantage here, so I hope I don't lose a place to Rosberg.
"We will have to keep an eye on what happens ahead of us and exploit the strategy in our favour. The new front wing? I don't like talking about individual components; on the one hand I think that's a job for the engineers, on the other, I prefer to share my opinions about it only with the team."
Speaking about his performance in qualifying, Alonso said: "We had considered using this tyre right from Q1 but then we decided not to take too many risks. Today, we were losing too much time in the first sector, where we lacked top speed.
"On my last run, I immediately lost a few tenths at the first corner and after that, I could not make up the time, so I decided not to complete the lap."
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