Raikkonen rues being narrowly pipped to Sochi pole

Kimi Raikkonen could be forgiving if he had been thinking he was about to clinch his first Formula 1 pole position since France in 2008.

That's also the last time that Ferrari has a front-row lock-out in qualifying. Raikkonen shared the honours that day with then-team mate Felipe Massa.

The Finn had laid down an impressive opening lap of 1:33.253s in the final round of qualifying for the Russian Grand Prix. But Sebastian Vettel went out for a second run and snatched pole away by just 0.059s.

Raikkonen's own final push wasn't enough to improve his time, and so he will start tomorrow's race from second place.

It's a painfully narrow margin to lose out by, but Raikkonen was still sounding upbeat. Or at least, as upbeat as he ever gets talking to the press in Sochi after qualifying.

Vettel and Raikkonen lock out Sochi front row

"I'm happier than previous qualifyings," he said. "But we had all the tools to be in the front today.

"Feeling has been more better this weekend. We just got some traffic on our out lap in the last set and couldn't really make the tyres work as well as the first run.

"It was a bit more trickier. It [the last lap] was thereabouts and I just tried to get it back in the last corner, but obviously didn't pay off.

"Obviously one-two for the team is not bad, [but] the aim is to be in the front," Raikkonen admitted.

GALLERY: All the pictures from Saturday in Sochi

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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.