Fernando Alonso not ruling out a Ferrari victory in Canadian Grand Prix

The Ferrari driver finished 0.367 seconds off pole position man Sebastian Vettel to equal his best qualifying result of the season.

Although Alonso conceded he would have to do a better job than Vettel and Lewis Hamilton to win on Sunday, he reckons anything could happen.

"You never know," said Alonso. "Races this year, they are difficult to predict. What we think on Saturday afternoon normally is not what happens on Sunday. We will see.

"It would be nice to win here, but we know at the moment there are two guys quicker than us. They proved it today and tomorrow we need to do better if we want to win."

The Spaniard, whose team has been making steady progress towards the front after a slow start to the season, said he had been delighted with how the weekend had gone, including the performance of the new parts introduced for the event.

"I am happy with the performance of the car," he said. "It has been a very smooth weekend for us. The new parts worked as expected, Felipe [Massa] and me felt straightaway a good grip and a step in performance for the car.

"We repeat what we did in Barcelona and there we got an important podium and in Monaco we got a competitive car again and a good podium. Here, with long straights and chicanes we are also competitive."

Team-mate Massa also secured a season-best grid position with sixth.