Kimi Raikkonen - Photo Credit: Charles Coates/LAT Photographic
Kimi Räikkönen said that he was disappointed with the best lap time he set during qualifying today in Shanghai, despite the fact that it was good enough for fifth place in that session.
The Finn also benefits from a five-place grid penalty for Lewis Hamilton, and will actually start tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix from fourth.
“The grid position is okay but when you look at the times, I'm disappointed with the pace of the car today,” said Räikkönen. “We've gained a position after Lewis's penalty but the speed wasn't where it should have been, especially when you look at the pole time.
“We've tried some updates this weekend, but they haven't worked as we wanted so we've gone back to how the car was before. We go into the race less confident in the car than in the last two races, but knowing that we start from a higher position on the grid.
“Let's see what we can do tomorrow, we'll try to do the best we can and hopefully we can be higher up than we are on the grid, and that means a podium.”
His Lotus team-mate Romain Grosjean also made it into Q3, but chose not to set a time in this final part of the session, and will start tomorrow’s race from tenth. “I have mixed feelings after today's session,” said the Frenchman. “After struggling a bit yesterday it's great to have both cars in Q3, but unfortunately after a terrible first run in Q2 we were forced to use up all our new sets of soft tyres before the final session. This meant there was no point trying to set a competitive time in the pole position shoot out which is a real shame, as our pace in Q2 was good.
“I feel much more comfortable with the car and I think that shows in the lap times today. The team did a great job to turn things around and get us back towards the top where we should be. I still have some fine tuning to do but 56 laps in tomorrow's race will certainly help that!”
