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oing into last week'€™s race in China, I was initially unsure about Ferrari'€™s pace after a poor showing by Massa in Malaysia, but now I am.

Fernando'€™s win was very impressive and showed that Australia was not a one-off and Ferrari will be a factor going into this week'€™s Bahrain GP, although there will still be some concerns about that one lap pace in qualifying.

It'€™s easy to think that Ferrari were the quickest, but once all the strategies had played out, it was also clear that Red Bull and Lotus were just as quick in the race when they had clear air. Ferrari just executed their race strategy better, allowing them to dictate the pace, which made them look quicker. Mercedes are also right in the mix but they need to find a little more race pace so that they can help protect their tires. At the moment they are a little fragile in that area.

Bahrain is another modern F1 circuit like Shanghai and Sepang with a touch more dust and high track surface heat to contend with. What is different is that there is heavier braking into slow corners, which means the brakes will have their toughest test this year so far (four areas where you brake at over 300 kilometers per hour). Slow corners also mean cars will need good traction and we expect that the rear tyre wear will be more of a factor compared to China, where drivers were dependent on their front axles.

With the soft tires wearing so quickly in China, Pirelli have decided to take their medium tires to Bahrain. With the hard tires there as well, the wear should not be as bad and we should see a mixture of two and three stops in the race instead of nearly everyone trying for three stops, as in China.

So far this year, tyres have been hard to manage, and the headlines have read that qualifying is less important due to the need to save tires for the race.

This may be true to a certain extent but, essentially, qualifying is still a very integral part of the weekend'€™s race.

Imagine if Alonso had qualified ninth instead of third in China. I think the traffic would have ruined his tire life and he would have found it very difficult to win.

Ferrari will be going into Bahrain full of confidence and, while Alonso did a good job of out-qualifying his teammate for the first time in China, you still got the sense that he could have done slightly better on the Saturday.

Essentially, he lost three-tenths of a second to Massa in the first two sectors on his Q3 lap before nailing the last sector. If Alonso does maximize his Saturday and qualifies on the first row, I think he will be very hard to beat.

Next up has to be Red Bull and Lotus. I think China was slightly unusual for Red Bull and I expect them to change it around and be right in the hunt for pole position.

Kimi did an exceptional job in the last qualifying session, but I think he was helped by others, such as Red Bull, who did not maximize their Saturday.

I think Lotus still need to work on the qualifying but similar to Alonso, if Kimi is in the first two rows, they will be in with a chance of a win.

Mercedes is the team I will be watching; they were so impressive in China all weekend until the race. They will be fighting for pole again but I think the problems of being able to be quick enough on Sunday, so that they exert less energy through their tyres, will still be there.

Catch Alex Yoong on STAR Sports'€™ coverage of this weekend'€™s Bahrain Grand Prix starting from Formula Friday, to Race Day and Chequered Flag! Watch all LIVE races in high-definition on FOX SPORTS PLUS.