Fernando Alonso believes that he has a 'real chance' to fight for a podium place in Sunday's French Grand Prix after qualifying his Renault R28 on the second row of the grid at Magny Cours.
Alonso was on the pace in all three qualifying sessions and while it was one of most competitive Q sessions of the year, the Spaniard was P7 in Q1 and P5 in Q2.
The two-time world champion eventually set the fourth best time in the top-ten shoot-out, but will move up a place on the grid to third - behind the pace setting
Ferrari's of
Kimi Raikkonen and
Felipe Massa, thanks to
Lewis Hamilton's ten-place penalty.
"The times were very tight today, in both Q1 and Q2, but I made it through to Q3 and was able to set a good time," said Fernando. "The car has really improved and so for the first time this season we have the real chance to fight for the podium.
"The Ferraris are certainly a step ahead, but we will give our maximum to get a good result tomorrow."
Nelson Piquet Jr meanwhile, who set the pace in the third and final practice session, just missed out on progressing to Q3 having set the eleventh best time. He will start from ninth - as a result of Hamilton's and
Heikki Kovalainen's penalties.
Piquet is now hoping he can break into the top-eight and score some points: "It's frustrating to miss out on Q3, but we didn't anticipate the behaviour of the soft tyres which turned out be slower than we thought. But at least we have the chance to adopt the ideal strategy for the race tomorrow and I hope we can benefit from that because it is particularly difficult to overtake here," he noted.
"The times were very close today, but the car behaved well and I think we can be on the pace in normal race conditions, and I will do my best to try and score my first points tomorrow."
Renault's executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds praised both of his drivers' performances in qualifying at what is the team's home event.
