Raikkonen sees progress from Russia at Ferrari

Kimi Raikkonen feels Ferrari has made a better start to the Spanish Grand Prix weekend than it did at the last race in Russia.

Mercedes held a clear advantage during the last race in Sochi, with Raikkonen struggling with the handling of his car and finishing a distant third in the race behind Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. Having been second in both practice sessions in Barcelona - a quarter of a second off Rosberg in FP2 - Raikkonen was encouraged by Friday's running.

"For me it feels like we started off the weekend a bit better," Raikkonen said. "It’s easier to make the tyres work than in Russia. But there’s still work to be done before we are 100 per cent happy, but at least we’re getting close to that. It’s still not exactly where we want it to be but we’re doing our normal work and we’ll see what we can do."

Asked if he also felt Ferrari was closer to Mercedes than in recent races, Raikkonen replied: "It’s only Friday and if you only look at the other Fridays then maybe we are.

"But we don’t know what the others are doing, we’re doing our own stuff and, like I said, it’s not bad but we can still improve here and there. It’s just a normal weekend story. This is just one track, one day, so you cannot suddenly reach the conclusion we’re close to them."

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