Chinese GP: Fernando Alonso says Ferrari is closing in on Red Bull

Alonso finished a distant ninth in Bahrain last time out, but topped both of Friday's dry free practice sessions in China before qualifying fifth in the wet on Saturday, behind the Mercedes and Red Bulls.



Although Alonso was well adrift of the Red Bulls in the wet, he feels Ferrari has closed the gap in the dry thanks to improvements made to the car since the last race.

"Mercedes is out of reach in dry conditions, but I don't think Red Bull is too far away," said Alonso.

"Mercedes has been very strong in dry conditions, so if we can have a good pace in the race, be close to Red Bull and even fight with them it would be good news.

"Hopefully we can be closer, not 30 seconds behind like in Bahrain.

"Yesterday the car was a little bit more competitive than what we had in the first two races, so the steps that we brought here, they work fine. That's positive news.

"We were too far behind the leaders in the first three races; tomorrow we can hopefully get closer.

"It doesn't mean I will fight for the podium, because I still think we are maybe not up there, but definitely we are closer.

"It's the first step of many that we want to make to be more competitive."