Ferrari 'not fast enough for pole,' admit Raikkonen and Vettel

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Ferrari drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel were forced to concede that they had no answer to Lewis Hamilton's blistering pole position pace at Silverstone on Saturday.

Raikkonen was nonetheless pleased to pip his team mate to second place in Q3. It means he will start on the front row alongside Hamilton in Sunday's British British Grand Prix.

"It felt okay," said the Finn. "In the morning it felt a little more tricky. Obviously conditions were not easy, changing a lot. But the car we had was good, the best it has been this weekend.

"Still, not quite fast enough for first place," he admitted, finishing over half a second off Hamilton's new track qualifying record time. However he insisted that this was not the end of the story.

"From what we've seen in the past, it's a different story in qualifying and the race for [Mercedes]," Raikkonen pointed out.

"For us there's not so much of a difference, so let's see tomorrow. It's always the same story, but we can run the same settings in the race.

"We'll try and see what happens. I have obviously nothing to lose. We'll try and make a good race for the team and catch up in the points."

Qualifying: Hamilton on pole ahead of Raikkonen and Vettel

His team mate Vettel conceded that Hamilton had just been too quick.

"I think he owned the pole position today," he said. "The time he put in at the end was very strong ... The one he put in before we were able to beat [but] the gap at the end was a bit bigger."

Even so, the German driver was disappointed to end qualifying off the front row. He felt that that he had been hindered by traffic in the final moments.

"The last run I was a bit compromised," he explained. "In the first sector especially, because tyres were not where they should have been.

"Shame the last run in Q3. I think there was a bit more, but in the end we got the best result.

"Most important is that the car is good. We improved it today and tomorrow should be better.

"This morning looked good, the car really came alive," he added. "Yesterday we weren't really happy, but this morning was really good.

So did he still think that he had a chance of passing Hamilton and Raikkonen and snatching victory in the Grand Prix?

"We have always been closer on Sundays, so sitting here, having expectations, the answer is always yes. But we'll see tomorrow."

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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.