Kimi Räikkönen believes he has a “good chance” at the Circuit of the Americas as he lines up on the front row for the United States Grand Prix.
The Finn qualified third but moves up to second due to his Scuderia Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel having a three place grid penalty.
The Ferrari’s have been off the pace compared to the Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport but Räikkönen feels they are back to where they should be this weekend.
“In the last couple of races we struggled a little bit, but so far this weekend, it has been more normal; we are more or less where we should be,” said Räikkönen. “And we are pretty happy with how things went today.
“For sure we wanted more, but at least we proved that we are thereabouts.”
Ferrari looked off the pace on Friday in the wet practice sessions but were much improved on Saturday.
“The morning started pretty well straightaway,” insisted the Finn. “Obviously there are always things that we hoped to do slightly better or feel better, but with the limited running we had in the dry, it’s not that simple.
“In qualifying the feeling with the different sets of tyres was a bit random, and this makes it a bit harder to know when you can push. The wind was changing in a few places and this made it a bit tricky, but generally we have been pretty good.”
Räikkönen has gone a different strategy compared to his team-mate and Lewis Hamilton who is on pole as he starts on the ultrasofts and will wait and see if he gains any advantage of not from that decision.
“I don’t know if my tire choice for tomorrow, starting on the Ultrasofts, will be an advantage or not, we’ll find out.
“We’ll try to make a decent start and then see what happens; I think we should have a good chance”.
