Raikkonen troubled by Mercedes blistering pace

Kimi Raikkonen beat team mate Sebastian Vettel to second in qualifying Saturday afternoon but that was no consolation for the Finn who felt troubled by Ferrari's significant gap with Mercedes.

Lewis Hamilton dominated the grid-defining session, securing pole position with a comfortable 0.664s margin over the first of the two prancing horses.

It's likely Raikkonen only owed his spot on the front row of tomorrow's grid to the absence of the other Silver Arrows which Valtteri Bottas eased into the wall at the outset in Q3.

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"There's an awful lot of work to be done to improve in all areas," Raikkonen said after assessing Ferrari's performance.

"We were all unsure where we were compared to the others and if you look purely at the lap time difference, for sure, it's bigger than we wanted.

"I had one mistake in Q2 and lost one run, then obviously we had to do the first run in Q3 with tyres that had already done half a lap. For sure, things could be a bit better here and there.

"It was not straightforward with the weather in the morning and the disturbance in Q3. We'll have to see it in the next qualifying sessions."

Despite a favourable track record in Melbourne, which includes two wins around Albert Park, the 38-year-old is keeping his hopes in check for tomorrow's race.

"Whatever has happened in the past doesn't make any difference tomorrow," he said.

"Obviously you want to be as far in front as you can, but that doesn't guarantee anything.

"We'll try to make a good race out of it and see where we end up. Hopefully we'll get a good result out of it."

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