Raikkonen: Second place in the European Grand Prix not what I wanted

The Finn battled past Lewis Hamilton's McLaren late on to secure second behind relatively comfortable winner Fernando Alonso's Ferrari.

Lotus had been tipped as the pre-race favourite for victory given its form this year at similar tracks and in comparable weather conditions to those experienced in Valencia, but while Raikkonen's team-mate Romain Grosjean was pushing Alonso hard before retiring, the 2007 Formula 1 champion did not look like a threat for the win.

"We didn't have speed today to challenge for the win," Raikkonen admitted. "In the end second place is OK but not what we wanted."

Raikkonen had looked like he might get among the leaders off the line, only to run out of space and fall back to sixth, where he stayed through the opening laps.

"We got a good start but I got blocked by [Pastor] Maldonado at the first right-hander and lost quite a few places because of that so I was a bit behind at that point," he said.

"We made a good recovery from that position and had quite a hard fight with people - overtaking and getting overtaken."