Spanish GP: Sebastian Vettel relaxed about missing pole

Formula 1 championship leader Sebastian Vettel said he was content with third position on the grid for Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona

Red Bull's three-time world champion qualified 0.336 seconds behind poleman Nico Rosberg, but is the first non-Mercedes on the grid and starts ahead of nearest points rival, Kimi Raikkonen.

"I am quite happy to be honest," said Vettel. "Yesterday and this morning I was really happy, and I think we improved the car."

Vettel believes that he is in good shape, tyre-wise, going into Sunday's race.

"We took a different approach to the majority of people, using option tyres only. Whether that helps us tomorrow we have to wait and see. It will be a long race, it will be about tyre degradation.

"Now, with the conditions helping a little, it is a tough challenge, the tyres don't last as long as we would like."

Although Mercedes drivers Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton voiced pessimism about their race chances, Vettel does not think the silver cars ahead will be too easy to beat or that Lotus and Ferrari are out of contention.

"Mercedes are in front of us right now, and to be honest they had some long runs and didn't look too bad," said Vettel.

"On the long runs yesterday both Ferrari and Lotus were pretty competitive, so we can expect them to be very strong in the race."