Kimi Raikkonen secured third on the grid for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after a superb final lap to get ahead of the Sahara Force India of Sergio Perez, with the Finnish driver feeling his Scuderia Ferrari has been performing well all day.
Raikkonen feels the race on Sunday could see the Italian team racing closer to the pace of the Mercedes AMG PETRONAS team that dominated qualifying, and will be looking to take the fight to Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton and make the most of the final race of the season.
“It has been a nice Saturday, my car has been feeling pretty good the whole day,” said Raikkonen. “This morning I only struggled on some laps, but overall the behavior was the way I wanted and when it’s like that it’s a lot easier to put the lap together.
“The Mercedes have been very quick today and yesterday, in the lap times they are a bit faster than us, but the race is tomorrow, so let’s see. I did my maximum today. Tomorrow is another day; we can only do our best and see where we’ll end up.
“We’ll try to make a good start and then see how it pans out, going from there and making the right decisions.”
