Raikkonen rues gearbox penalty and tyre issues

Kimi Raikkonen was clearly unhappy to find himself starting the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix from outside the top ten, as the result of a combination of tyre problems and a forced gearbox change, which came with a five place grid penalty.

"I felt there was something wrong in FP3 and we had to change it," Raikkonen said when asked about the gearbox.

"I don't know exactly what happened but we had to change parts or the whole gearbox and that was a very unfortunate thing," he continued. "It’s not the first time unfortunate things happen – if I could take the penalty somewhere else I would – but this is how it is."

Raikkonen was also frustrated to still be struggling with the handling of the car, which he put down to the tyres.

"For sure we improved the car from practice, even from this morning we improved the car. In some places the car feels quite nice and in some places it’s not so good.

"I think it has more to do with getting the tyres to where we want them to be, to be able to switch them on, to make sure they are in the working range they should be on, to get the best grip out of it.

"When you get the tyres to work better the grip is better. We were so much on the edge of that working range that in some laps were better and them you expected the tyres to behave the same way, but you either lose the rears or you lose the fronts.

"It’s not easy in this kind of place and we took a big time penalty for that if we would know how to fix that issue we would, but right know it’s difficult."

It's not the first time Ferrari has struggled in qualifying, with Saturday in Barcelona also proving difficult for the team, making it a priority for Ferrari to understand and resolve the problems they've been experiencing.

"We know the reasons but if we know how to fix it? Not right now in this kind of place. But we’re going to some circuits where we’re more likely to have no issues. It’s hard to say."

The Monaco Grand Prix tends to be something of a procession, but Raikkonen was hoping for some unexpected incidents in tomorrow's race to help him work his way back up the running order.

"A lot of things happen and hopefully we’ll make the right calls when the Safety Cars or something else happens. We can benefit from that but you never know what can happen in the race here.

"It will be a tricky day tomorrow, but we’ll see what we can get out of it. Hopefully it will be a really chaotic race and it comes our way. You never know!"

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