Kovalainen welcomes second row slot

The McLaren driver will start behind teammate Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, and he is aiming to score good points to help McLaren in the constructors' championship.

"It was a pretty good session all the way through," admitted the Finn. "It took a bit of time to get up to speed in Q1 but by Q2 everything felt pretty good. In the last part of session I felt I put two pretty good laps together, although there were small mistakes and small moments.

"Third was the maximum we could get today and hopefully tomorrow things will work out best for us. We have both championship to fight for so for myself is important to score as many points as possible."

Kovalainen said he was pleased with the progress McLaren have made during the season and he feels the team aer likely to be strong everywhere now.

"The car has felt pretty good all the way through the season and perhaps a couple of races we made some huge improvements," he added. "Since then we have been on the right track. The team put a huge effort in and it will carry on until Brazil.

"The car feels good everywhere. It feels like a pretty close fight. You have really got to nail everything but I am really, really happy in the team."