Ferrari, Fernando Alonso: “Our grid position is not a surprise”

Fernando Alonso described his eighth place on the grid for the Brazilian Grand Prix as "not a surprise", and is still confident of finishing on the podium.

The Ferrari driver needs to score at least 14 points more than championship rival Sebastian Vettel in tomorrow's race to take the title, but Red Bull qualified four places ahead.

Alonso is not worried about this and declared himself satisfied with his qualification.

“It's no surprise because I started seventh in Abu Dhabi, ninth in the United States, and eighth here. So it's more or less as expected,” Alonso said.

“We will try to repeat our performance on Sunday and reach the podium like in Abu Dhabi and Austin.”

“We need some strange circumstances, we need a chaotic race with rain, or something like that, hopefully we see something like that.”

He also denied that Ferrari went for a wet set-up in qualifying in anticipation of rain on Sunday.

“We ran with maximum downforce in dry conditions so obviously it's the same in the wet, so no big changes,” insisted Alonso.

“I don't think anyone bet on a wet set-up today because there are minimal changes.”