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 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Max Verstappen. 

Despite being out-qualified by both Red Bull and Ferrari cars, Alonso was able to edge out the Mercedes pair of Russell and168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史: 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-ra🅷iser. 

"I think we've 🍒go𓆏t 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 Fe♚rrari, 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.ℱ"

Russell, who pipped Hamilton to sixth by just 0.044s, was encouraged by Mercedes’ qualifying performance aꦰfter a difficult start tꦰo 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 exp♛ected 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-qu🐓arters of last year problem solving...and now I feel we've got a car which is nice to drive.

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

"T🐎here are definitely signs to be positive, but we've got a lot to improve.”