Raikkonen blames lock-up for missing Silverstone pole

Kimi Raikkonen felt that he had the pace to be on pole position for the British Grand Prix in today's qualifying session at Silverstone.

"I think I had all the tools today to be faster," the Ferrari driver said after the chequered flag. "But I locked the front wheel into 16 a bit on the last lap.

"To be sure, that gave away enough time to be on front. But then that's how it goes.

"We had first and last sector but in the middle obviously I think I had a small moment on the first try, the first set, into turn 7, so I took it a bit easier.

"I was still gaining but I’m sure there were places to gain a tenth easily but obviously it didn’t happen today, so this is what we got.

"It was close, but third is not too bad," he insisted.

Starting from third is the same as last week in Austria. That race saw Raikkonen get a terrific launch off the grid to split the two Mercedes ahead of him into the first corner.

• Qualifying: Hamilton takes record sixth pole at Silverstone

The Finn is clearly hoping for a similarly explosive start to this week's Grand Prix to insert himself between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.

"I don’t plan to do anything different," he said. "Obviously we try to make a good start as well as we can but there are things that you will never be able to plan.

"You do it what you think the right outcome might be different that you expect but that’s how it goes sometimes. Try to make a good start and go from there, see what we can come up with.

"I think I’ve got a good car and my car should be good tomorrow," Raikkonen said. "Hopefully it’s a close fight, not easy to overtake as always but we will see what we can do and so far it’s been OK.

"Obviously it’s hot and it will not be an easy race with the tyres, so I think we might see a few different things happening there, but we’re aiming for the top for sure."

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