Fernando Alonso is hoping he will not need to rely on another driver's misfortune as he bids for a second successive victory at the Australian GP this weekend.
The Spaniard made the perfect start to life with Ferrari as he won the season-opening race in Bahrain earlier this month.
In a race that failed to live up to expectation due to the lack of overtaking, Alonso made his move when early leader Sebastian Vettel suffered spark-plug failure in his Red Bull.
Felipe Massa finished second to cap a fine day for Ferrari but Alonso is hoping to qualify at the front of the grid at Albert Park on Saturday to ensure the outcome of the race is in his own hands.
"Hopefully here in Australia we can be strong and we can fight for the win," he said.
"We were lucky enough to win after his (Vettel's) problem. Hopefully we can start in front of him and not need to wait for any problem."
Qualifying at the front will be easier said than done, however, with Vettel and team-mate Mark Webber likely to be challenging as well as both the McLarens and Mercedes.
And while Alonso admitted the Red Bulls currently have the edge over the rest of the field in terms of speed, he feels pace alone is not necessarily enough to win races.
"I think maybe performance-wise maybe Red Bull is a bit ahead of everybody now, which is not a surprise because they finished 2009 very strongly, so they kept the momentum," he added. "But one thing is to be the fastest car and another thing is to win the race.
"At the beginning (in Bahrain) I was not able to attack because (Vettel) was definitely quicker than me with the soft tyres.
"Then with the hard tyres it seemed that I was a little bit more comfortable, but maybe he was controlling that part of the race or something - it's always difficult to say.
"I think we need a couple of races to understand the picture better. We will try to push them again, and it will depend also circuit to circuit."
Alonso also reiterated his belief that Formula One has not become boring following new regulations for this season that resulted in limited overtaking in Bahrain.
Following a ban on race refuelling and the decision to allow just a single tyre change, the race was criticised for turning into a procession but Alonso stressed it is too early to say whether the rules have had a negative effect.
"We need to be calm and wait some races to really see if the new rules have some impact," he added. "I don't think they have any change, last year in the first seven races Jenson (Button) won six. Was it boring? Maybe yes, maybe no.
"This is Formula One. If we want to see wet races, safety cars, all these things every race it will not be Formula One any more.
"This is about the knowledge, about how precise everything - drivers, engineering, everything - if people want extra show, maybe they need to reconsider if they want to watch Formula One?"
