Fernando Alonso declared himself as extremely happy after securing second place in the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday.
The Ferrari driver looked set to finish in fourth, but he gained two positions after Lewis Hamilton crashed out of the race and Sebastian Vettel hit trouble with his brakes in the final moments of the event. The result allowed Alonso to move into second place in the standings, just three points behind championship leader Jenson Button.
Alonso admitted the result was fantastic for him after not the best of weekends.
"Now I feel extremely happy after the result today and when you gain two positions in last part of race, unexpected positions, it feels great, and you have a fantastic feeling right now," said Alonso. "Overall the weekend has been so-so for us, but in terms of result fantastic weekend for us. Fourth in qualifying, second in the race is fantastic for the team."
The two-time champion conceded, however, that Ferrari needs to improve in order to catch Red Bull, after Mark Webber dominated the race.
"We need to improve, we know that," he said. "We saw this weekend, we saw we need to improve in some areas in the car, especially for qualifying.
"We learned some things this weekend. We worked again to maximize our potential. We know sometimes we will be third, sometimes fifth, sometimes first hopefully. As long as we do our best, we can be satisfied."