Kovalainen happy with third on the grid

The Finn derived some pleasure from being the fastest McLaren driver, out-pacing teammate Lewis Hamilton by a tenth of a second, but admitted he was disappointed not to be able to challenge the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen.

"Of course we were hoping to do a couple of places better," he said. "Ferrari have both been pretty fast all weekend and we had nothing more to give today, third place was the maximum we could achieve today, I am happy with that. It was a clean lap with no mistakes and like I said in Melbourne we go step-by-step as I get used to the team and the car.

"Third place is still a good position to start from tomorrow and we'll see how the strategy goes. We still aim to do the maximum job tomorrow and we'll see."

Kovalainen added that he believed the swing in form from McLaren to Ferrari in Sepang was no surprise and that the problems the Italian team had in Melbourne has masked their true potential.

"Our balance is very similar to what it was in Melbourne and we didn't see the pace of Ferrari in Melbourne," he said. "They had problems in qualifying and the race, so this is more representative of the pace of other teams.

"The race is tomorrow, we are still in a good position and by no means is the game over. We see tomorrow what we can do."