Long runs 'a big struggle' for Ferrari - Raikkonnen

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Kimi Raikkonen says Ferrari found the long runs "a big struggle" during Friday practice for the Belgian Grand Prix.

Ferrari has stocked up on supersoft tyres for this weekend's race at Spa-Francorchamps, but high temperatures are likely to lead to increased levels of tyre degradation. Raikkonen admits he was having trouble with the supersofts at one stage in FP2 but found the long runs of bigger concern.

"Everything was pretty OK in the afternoon but then I was running quite badly with the supersoft and running off the circuit," Raikkonen said. "Then in the long runs it was a big struggle for whatever reason, but it was one of those days. That was OK and in the end it was not an awful lot to find but I’m sure we’ll fix it tomorrow."

While not happy with the handling of his car, Raikkonen - who finished seventh in FP3 - believes Ferrari should still be competitive compared to the other front-running teams as all of them are hampered by high tyre pressures.

"I don’t know [how many teams are in the mix], I haven’t had time to check what the others have been doing but we finished not too bad. In the end, OK the feeling wasn’t correct but we should be more or less up there but is it enough for a win? We will see."

Asked if the high temperatures are going to prove troublesome for Ferrari, Raikkonen replied: "Obviously it’s too early to say. We will go through everything and try to get the best out of everything for tomorrow."

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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.