Alonso ‘more of a dark horse than Ferrari’ - Russell 

After topping FP2 and FP3 in his impressive Aston Martin, Alonso was unable to get involved in the fight for pole as he ended up fifth-fastest, half a second down on Max Verstappen. 

Despite being out-qualified by both Red Bull and Ferrari cars, Alonso was able to edge out the Mercedes pair of Russell and Lewis Hamilton. 

And Russell reckons the two-time world champion’s eye-catching race pace will make him a real contender in Sunday’s curtain-raiser. 

"I think we've got a fight on our hands for P3,” Russell told Sky. 

“Ferrari over the last four years have always been really strong in qualifying and struggled a bit more in the race, so I'm relatively pleased to be not so far behind them.

"Fernando is probably more of a dark horse than Ferrari, he had some really good race pace in testing, so I think it's going to be a good fight for P3. 

"It's just a shame the Red Bulls are a bit too far ahead for now."

Russell, who pipped Hamilton to sixth by just 0.044s, was encouraged by Mercedes’ qualifying performance after a difficult start to the Bahrain weekend. 

"Friday was a bit of a shock for us because we didn't really know why we lost so much performance or were off the pace,” he said. 

"We made some changes and they exceeded our expectations, so that's a positive, but after winter testing this is probably where we expected to be.

"Our goal over the winter was to make sure we've got a car we can build upon and that there aren't any significant problems.

"We spent probably three-quarters of last year problem solving...and now I feel we've got a car which is nice to drive.

"It generally feels like a good car, and now we can focus on adding downforce and performance which is what the team have done for so long. 

"There are definitely signs to be positive, but we've got a lot to improve.”