Alonso delighted with fourth after Kvyat clash

Fernando Alonso has said he is 'extremely happy' to have put his Ferrari on the second row of the grid for the 2014 F1 Malaysian Grand Prix, especially after that incident with Daniil Kvyat in Q2.

Alonso looked poised to start in third place, but was demoted right at the end of the top-ten shootout when Nico Rosberg improved. Despite slipping down a spot though, Alonso remained upbeat: "I am happy. I am extremely happy with fourth," he told reporters in Sepang, including Crash.net.

"You never know where you are from practice. In free practice on Friday, we saw Mercedes again not using the potential and they did the same in Australia. Then on Saturday they were one second ahead. Today in FP3 they were one second ahead too. They only use the [full] potential at the moment on Saturday's and Sunday's. To be fourth then is nearly the maximum we can do right now."

"Also after the accident the car was very heavy on one side and very light on the other," he continued. "In wet conditions this is not the easiest way to drive the car. We managed to put the car out on the track though and complete the laps and those laps were enough to be fourth.

"We need to be very, very happy."

Quizzed on the coming together with Kvyat, Alonso was philosophical: "Obviously it was an unfortunate situation, wrong place at wrong moment. I didn't see him - that is the truth. I turn in and I only felt the hit. I didn't even see him before he hit the car. I haven't seen a re-play yet or anything like that. I don't know where he was coming from - if he was late on braking, if he locked the tyres... I don't know anything. Just for sure, it was a surprise on the out-lap with these visibility conditions, to have this kind of attack," he added.

"We were lucky to be able to come back to the pit lane and repair the car, with a world record, probably, front suspension change."

So what can he do in the race now? "We will push to the maximum tomorrow. Whether it is dry or if it is wet, we need to put some pressure on Mercedes.

"It is not 100 per cent sure that the cars will finish again. We were very concerned in Australia and we cannot now be relaxed about finishing the race two weeks after. We also saw one of the Mercedes was very dominant there, but the other one retired early on. We need to be there. We need to put on pressure. We need to try and make it so they don't have an easy race.

"But at the same time we need to be realistic and know it is probably going to be difficult for us to match the pace of Mercedes," he concluded.