Alonso bigger dark horse of Bahrain GP, Ferrari second

After setting the fastest times in the second and third practice sessions, Alonso was in the hunt for pole position in Bahrain, but he ran early to complete his final Q3 lap and qualified fifth.

The Aston Martin driver was 0.628s behind poleman Max Verstappen and behind Sergio Perez and an all-Ferrari second row. But the two-time champion held both Mercedes at arm’s length, with Russell setting the sixth fastest time ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton.

However, Russell believes Ferrari has already shown its hand, as its race pace is often worse than its qualifying speed, meaning Alonso will be the person to watch at the GP.

When asked by Motorsport.com about the possibility of Mercedes overtaking Ferrari in the race, Russell preferred to quote the Spaniard: “Their race pace is always a bit worse than their qualifying pace.

“We’re the opposite. So qualifying three tenths behind [Ferrari] when they were probably the fastest car on a single lap, I think we’re in a good position to fight for that P3.

“But to be honest, Fernando is probably more of a dark horse than Ferrari.”

The Briton added that fifth on the grid for Alonso and eighth for the injured Lance Stroll was lower than he would have predicted, given the Aston AMR23’s strong performance in testing.

Russell continued: “I expected a little bit more from them, to be honest.

“I was a little surprised that we were so close to them with all the pace they showed. I think it was a good session for us.

“It’s interesting to see how competitive they were in practice, but at the end of the day, qualifying is the first time you get a real read.

“I’d say for this weekend it’s pretty much where we expected to be.”

Russell added that Mercedes’ overnight modifications to its W14 were five times better than expected.

While he would not comment on the exact nature of those modifications, Russell estimated that they had resulted in a half-second gain, while he and Hamilton were only on the bangs of the top 10 in Friday’s practice.

However, the team could not rely on them being permanent solutions, as they had yet to understand why they had been so transformative.

Russell said, “The change we made, we expected to find probably one ten. We found maybe five or six tenths. We need to understand why.

“Obviously, it’s good news, but we have to understand it.

“After FP3, we didn’t really look for understanding. We just focused on maximizing performance. So it will be a job for Monday.”