Canadian GP: Fernando Alonso says Ferrari just not fast enough

Although Alonso set the pace in first practice on Friday, the Ferrari was no match for its rivals during Saturday's grid-deciding session, with the Spaniard and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen ending up seventh and 10th respectively.

Alonso finished nearly a second off polesetter Nico Rosberg, despite what he labelled as a very good lap.

"I think it was the limit," said Alonso of his seventh place on the grid.

"The lap was very, very good. The lap was surprisingly good.

"Obviously the rest of the cars are faster than us and they went faster during all of qualifying. It's not like in Q3 they suddenly returned. It was a difficult Saturday for us and it means we were not fast enough."

Ferrari introduced several updates in Canada, but Alonso said some of them did not make it into the car on Saturday because of the higher temperatures.

The Spaniard is hopeful the team will take a step forward in the upcoming, cooler races.

"The new package worked OK. I felt the car better. I know there are some more things coming in the next races, and they will hopefully put us in a better position.

"Williams was surprisingly good here, and the Red Bulls were very fast. We want to fight for second place in the constructors' and right now it's Red Bull in front of us so we would like to finish in front of them tomorrow if we can."

Raikkonen completed just one run in Q3, but admitted running more would not have made a difference to his grid position.

"It wasn't a very good lap in the end, but there was only one chance," he said. "I would have liked to have another go, but it wouldn't change our position a lot.

"I was sliding around a lot and it was difficult to get the one lap. It was on the edge."