Raikkonen struggling to switch on his tyres

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Tyre problems were the reason for a lacklustre performance from Ferrari on Friday in Baku ahead of this weekend's Grand Prix of Europe, according to Kimi Raikkonen.

"We struggled to make the tyre work for one lap and they don’t work exactly like we want," he said. "The single lap time is not there but as we do more laps it seems to get better and better.

"We don’t know what the others are doing, but when everything worked the balance was kind of okay.

"But it was more about trying to get the tyres to work for one lap and this seems to be a difficulty right now, more laps seem to help but over one lap it’s we need to find something to get the grip out of them.

"We have to see what we did today and see what we can improve tomorrow on that side."

Raikkonen's session ended early when the back wheels of his car locked up with a technical issue, forcing him to take to the nearest run-off area and park.

"I just walked back from there and I don’t think the team know yet. The car just stopped but I don’t know the reason," he said. The team later called in his team mate Sebastian Vettel citing an issue with the MGU-K unit and suggesting that it had been the same reason for Raikkonen's issues.

Raikkonen added that he didn't have any issues with the new Baku City Circuit, which is making its début in Formula One this weekend.

"The circuit was okay," he said. "It is a bit slippery like all the new circuits but the layout is pretty okay. It’s a different and new place."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.