Fernando Alonso says an opening day focused on race preparations means that there's "more performance" to unlock form Alpine's A522 in Jeddah.
The Spaniard ended Friday's running just outside the top-ten but convinced that there's more to come from the Enstone squad this weekend.
"We have mainly focused on the race preparation so far this weekend and it has gone relatively smoothly for us on track," he said.
"There is also more performance in the car than we showed today, so that’s encouraging for tomorrow."
Alonso felt that the French outfit's new car is well suited to Jeddah's characteristics and to the circuit's specific challenges.
"It’s a challenging circuit to qualify on with such high speeds and high adrenaline," he said.
"The new cars felt good on this track and not too dissimilar to last year. I think the overall lap times looked quite competitive too.
"From just today’s running it looks as though this generation of Formula 1 car is perhaps better suited to this track than what we found in Bahrain."
Alonso's teammate Esteban Ocon who was eighth fastest in FP2 was equally satisfied with his first day of work in Saudi Arabia.
"The more we spend time on track the more we understand the balance, the different compounds and we were able to see how the car behaves in the evening, as the track is much quicker in those conditions," said Ocon.
"It was a good day of learning in that respect and the key will be to get the car in that sweet spot for the night race. Overall, I’m happy and aiming to continue the momentum."
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