Raikkonen not worried by gap with Mercedes

Kimi Raikkonen qualified 4th for Formula 1's season-opener, without any major issues to report.

The Ferrari driver put in a string of consistent runs in each segment, ending up a few tenths from team mate Sebastian Vettel, and like his colleagues, called it a day early in Q3 to save tyres..

"It was not the ideal qualifying, but not too bad either," said the Finn.

"The car feels pretty good, and even if the Mercedes are faster than us I don't think we should be too worried.

"I was struggling a bit with the front tyres to get them working at the first three corners, but apart from that we had a very good package and it was getting better and better."

Despite the gap with Mercedes, Raikkonen believes Ferrari's pace relative to the Silver Arrows isn't much to be worried about, at least for now.

"I wouldn’t put too much in to the time differences between us and Mercedes here. Obviously yes, we would rather be in front, but it has been quite a strange weekend so far and for us, I think it would be better to have slightly warmer conditions to have the tyres ready and working better.

"Once we go to the next races and normal circuits and hopefully more normal conditions then we’ll see the real picture. Obviously they are very fast but I don’t think we should be too worried."

Speaking on the new qualifying format and its overwhelming negative impression, Raikkonen was his typical pragmatic and straight-forward self on the matter.

"It is what it is, that’s the rule. I think as a team what we did, we did the correct timings and the correct things so we ran it probably as smoothly as you can.

"Apart from that it doesn’t really make a difference if we like it or not , it’s what we have and what we have to work with."

As a driver who has often responded sharply to his crew's radio messages, restrictions imposed on the later may be exactly what Raikkonen wants. Shall he be better being left alone therefore?

"I think if everything runs normal and as planned, it shouldn’t make an awful lot of difference. Obviously if there are issues or a very confusing race with a lot of things happening it will be more tricky.

"But as long as we remember to do the things that we are supposed to then in an ideal world it should not change an awful lot, but it’s not often that it goes as planned so let’s see."

As it happened: Qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix

F1i's Australian Grand Prix preview

2016 F1 season: Team-by-team preview