Power unit issue cost better Q3 position - Raikkonen

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Kimi Raikkonen believes he is out of position on the grid for the Mexican Grand Prix after a power unit concern in qualifying.

With Ferrari having been quick this weekend, it was somewhat of a surprise when Raikkonen qualified sixth, just ahead of team-mate Sebastian Vettel but behind Nico Hulkenberg's Force India. Raikkonen says his team made good progress with his car overnight and expected to be competitive but an unusual feeling with his power unit hampered him in Q3.

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"I felt my car was definitively better today, our qualifying lap times were better today," Raikkonen said. "Q1 was pretty OK, straightaway, we struggled a bit in Q2 to get the tyres to where we wanted them. The Soft tyre worked pretty OK but I lost a bit in the last corners.

"Then, in Q3, the first lap was pretty decent, but I felt I lost time in a few places. Then I had an odd feeling in the last run, we had some issue with power in the last set of tyres and could never use them. I feel there was a lot of lap time that we never got, because we didn’t use the second set of tyres.

"It was a bit of a struggle because I took it a bit easy in the first run of Q3, so I think the position we are in doesn’t show the lap time we could achieve. It was just unfortunate that it went like that."

With both Ferraris starting on the soft tyre on Sunday, Raikkonen is hopeful the team will resolve his power unit concern and be more competitive in the race.

"It depends a lot on the weather what the tyres will do. Obviously we wouldn’t have gone for this strategy if we didn’t think it was the right choice. As for the issue, the team is looking into it. I don’t know what’s the real situation.

"Right now I don’t feel [beating Vettel] gives anything, we struggled with the issue. I thought the car was pretty decent but with the small problem we had I couldn’t run and it cost us quite a few places. But this is how it is today and we have to go forward. Tomorrow I think we can be much stronger."

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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.