Kimi Raikkonen has described his mistake in qualifying for the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix as “painful” and “frustrating” after seeing his chance of a sensational pole-position slip away.
Raikkonen was set to challenge his team-mate Sebastian Vettel‘s provisional pole time when he momentarily lost control of his car at turn sixteen and bled time on Baku’s long run to the finish time to ultimately end up sixth.
“In Q3, on my last run I had a lot of speed and the feeling with the car was really good; I knew I had a very good lap going,” said Raikkonen, whose lap-time of 1:42.490 only narrowly pipped Esteban Ocon.
“Entering the last corner I took it very easily because over the weekend the wind has been quite tricky there. But for whatever reason I got a massive snap exiting the corner and went sideways.
“I was able to get the car back but the lap was gone. I’m pretty sure that without that mistake I would have been in a much better position.
“It’s very painful and frustrating to mess it up in the last corner like that, I’m very disappointed. Unfortunately with the mistake we are not in a very good position for the race.
“Today it did not pay off, but tomorrow is another day and we’ll do our best”.
