Kimi Raikkonen was amongst those who felt the opening phase of the Austrian Grand Prix hurt his chances of a good result, with the Finn losing a good chunk of time in those opening laps whilst running on the Ultrasoft tyre.
The Scuderia Ferrari driver was edged down to fourth on the opening lap by the fast starting Daniel Ricciardo, and then lost out to Lewis Hamilton during the pit stop cycle, finishing 20.370 seconds behind race winner Valtteri Bottas.
But the first stint cost him too much time, which, despite having a stronger car in the second half of the race, left him with too much to do, ultimately being forced to settle for fifth.
“In the first part of the race we had some difficulties with the balance of the car,” admitted Raikkonen. “I struggled a little bit with the first set of tyres at the beginning, but then it was getting better and better.
“The second set was fine: at the beginning of the last stint the car felt very good and we had good speed, but at that point we were too far behind to try to recover.
“As the tyres were getting older we obviously started to go slower, but we were still doing good lap times and the balance was improving. Overall, though, it was not a very easy weekend.”
