Alonso "really happy to be back in action"

Fernando Alonso ended his Friday running in China in 11th position, just ahead of team mate Jenson Button.

The Spaniard returned to the cockpit today and was given the medical green light for the remainder of the race weekend  in between the two practice sessions.

"I feel good and missed the car a lot in the last twenty-six days, I'm really happy to be back" Alonso said.

"There's still a little bit of pain because my rib has not completely recovered which is normal. But the pain will be manageable in the race."

Given the prospect of rain tomorrow in Shanghai, McLaren-Honda, like most of its rivals, compressed its working schedule a bit on Friday in order to run on the tyre compounds it has chosen.

"Today was important to try both compounds because we have a forecast of rain tomorrow for qualifying so this was the only chance to test the tyres for the race.

"We maximized the program and we're happy with the results but we need to find more performance in the car.

"We need to concentrate on the dry balance which we were not completely happy with. We're missing a bit of traction and rear-end grip, so looking at the race we need to change some things if we want to be more competitive."

Alonso admitted that a damp qualifying session tomorrow would be a trip into the unknown for the entire field which hasn't yet experienced a wet qualy session in 2016.

"If qualifying is wet at the end it will be a bit of a question mark as it will be the first wet session for everybody this year. We'll try to do our best but I think we need to focus on Sunday's performance."

REPORT: Raikkonen fastest as Ferrari leads Mercedes in FP2

AS IT HAPPENED: Chinese Grand Prix - FP2

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