After looking like he would easily take third position for the Scuderia Ferrari squad in qualifying, Kimi Raikkonen was pipped to the spot by fellow countryman Valtteri Bottas and had to settle for fourth place instead, after messing up in the final corner of his flying lap.
The Finn is confident however, that he can perform much better during the race at the Sochi Autodrom tomorrow, where he inherits that third place once team-mate Sebastian Vettel‘s grid penalty is applied.
“The whole weekend has been tricky: for whatever reason, I struggled all the time to put one decent lap together,” revealed Raikkonen. “In qualifying it was a bit better, but I was still fighting with the front end in a few places. It could have been good enough for a second or a third place on the grid, but on my last lap I completely missed the last corner and slid away.
“Obviously I’m a disappointed with what happened, but considering how difficult it has been, this result it’s not ideal but it’s better than nothing. At least we are in third place at the start, we’ll see what happens tomorrow, I think in the race it’s going to be better.”