With Red Bull and McLaren dominating the weekend's running, it seemed that Alonso would be forced to settle for a place on the third row of the grid.However, late in the third session of qualifying the Spaniard thrilled his home crowd by producing a lap just + 0.983 seconds slower than pole sitter Mark Webber and 0.032 seconds faster than Jenson Button's McLaren.
"I did a perfect lap: I reckon that if I tried to repeat it twenty times, I could not do better!" said a delighted Alonso.
"When you do a lap like that it's hard to put into words what one feels: always being on the limit, in every corner is a really special feeling for a driver.
"I am very happy with this result, because we have never made it to the second row this year. Sure, pole position is still a long way off: today, Red Bull was once again out of reach and we must work hard to try and get closer.
The 29-year-old was confident that Ferrari would be challenging for the top places on race day.
"So far, in the races we have gone better than in qualifying and so I think we can be in the fight for the podium," he explained.
"It will be tough at the start because the McLarens always get off the line well and then they have one more new set of soft tyres than we do."
Source: Planet-F1
