'Disappointed' Raikkonen looks to build on fourth place

Never knowingly upbeat, Kimi Raikkonen said that he was disappointed with only managing fourth place in Melbourne.

"Obviously for the team it was a great start winning the race," the Ferrari driver told Sky Sports F1. "From my side a bit not ideal. But it's a good foundation and we have a strong package."

Raikkonen felt that his race was compromised by not doing better in Saturday's qualifying session. The ultrasoft tyres he used in Q2 were the same set he started the race on.

"Obviously especially here it's all about qualifying and the start and it's hard to overtake on this circuit," he pointed out. "I suffered a bit with the same tyres than in qualifying with the ultrasofts. When I moved to the soft tyres I was good."

Raikkonen spent much of the race being followed by Max Verstappen, but Raikkonen didn't feel pressured by the Red Bull.

"I wasn't too worried about him because it's hard to get past on the average speed they wanted to use," he said. "We had to do quite a bit of fuel saving. I guess all the guys have to. Then I pushed in the end a bit. No complaints on that point."

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The lack of overtaking opportunities also meant that Raikkonen ultimately had no option but to settle for fourth place.

"Disappointing, but I'm happy we understood a lot of things so we can get it back to where it should be in the next race," he said. "I'm happy we know what to do.

"It's not an ideal start but at least I got points and fourth place is far from a disaster.

"Comparing to past years I think we have a very strong foundation to build on," he added. "We just need to put things 100 per cent in the right place and go from there.

"It's going to be a long year and a lot can happen."

GALLERY: all the pics from Sunday's action

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.