Fernando Alonso is content with his fourth-place finish in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, saying it's not "such a bad result".
Ferrari lacked pace the whole weekend and they were unable to match Red Bull and McLaren on Sunday as Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton claimed the first two places with Renault's Vitaly Petrov third. However, Alonso still managed to finish ahead of Mark Webber and Jenson Button.
"If you just look at the classification, this is not such a bad result; yes we have lost ground to Vettel and Hamilton, although we have done better than Webber and Button," he said.
"Here at Albert Park, it seems that I have a season ticket for fourth place, as it's the third time in four years that I've finished the race in this position. Last year, we came here off the back of the win in Bahrain, which means that the same result then had a very different feel to it.
"Once again today, Vettel seemed to be on another planet, while the others were a bit closer, not to the extent they were on Friday, but at least not as far off as in qualifying yesterday."
It was almost a repeat of the final race of the 2010 season for Alonso as he found himself stuck behind Petrov. The Spaniard though was quick to point out that it wasn't such a big deal as Petrov is unlikely to challenge for honours.
"Finishing behind [Vitaly] Petrov again like in Abu Dhabi? True, but it's a coincidence and then, at this stage it is more satisfying to have managed to keep Webber behind me, who I reckon will be a more serious rival in the title fight than the Russian."
The new adjustable rear wing and KERS provided two of the major talking points in Australia.
"KERS worked well as did the moveable rear wing, although it did not make the overtaking moves that easy," he said. "At the start there was a bit of confusion: I got away well, but then Button headed for me and I had to go wide to avoid a collision. The strategy was just right and it helped me to make up some places.
"Maybe if I hadn't ended up immediately in traffic, I could have tried to go for two stops but given how things went, we made the best decision. We are in the right zone for us to be able to win a title, but definitely not if we keep finishing third or fourth. We have to improve, we know that, but it's still too early to make any predictions."
