Fernando Alonso believes Ferrari has made progress with its tire warm-up issues, leaving him more upbeat of doing well in qualifying in China.
The Maranello squad has endured a tough start to the season, with its main problem being a lack of form during qualifying runs. On Friday, however, Alonso said he believes Ferrari could be in better shape in China thanks to better tire warm-up.
"I think it was better here today," Alonso said. "In Australia, it was a problem with the warm-up, even in Malaysia with the hard tire the first lap was not the quickest with the hard, but for whatever reason here it was OK.
"I was weaving on the straight because I had a very slow out lap, particularly with some traffic at the beginning, so let some cars go, and then weave a bit. For Felipe and me, we found better warm-up in the hard tires here than the other two races, so should be good for us in terms of qualifying and the race, for sure."
The Spaniard said, however, he will not be compromising his race setup to have a better qualifying position.
"What we need to do is improve the car," he said. "When the car is good, the qualifying will be good and the race will be even better, so it is what we have to do. We have to find some time in the car, some improvements, and the qualifying and the race pace come together, everything becomes much easier, the strategy works, and everything is easier.
"That is the main priority for us – improve the car as quick as possible, get new parts every race and hopefully they work good enough. We know some other teams will bring new parts as well. We just need to bring something more than them."
Alonso refused to rule out fighting for victory on Sunday, although he conceded Red Bull and McLaren are still in front.
"Who knows? This is F1. This is unpredictable sport, so anything can happen in Sunday's race. There are other drivers with more possibilities, to be honest, because I think Red Bull is still a little bit quicker than us.
"McLaren is a little bit quicker than us so they should be more favorites, but we will try to do the best we can, and if for any reason we can fight for the victory then be sure we will go for it."