Raikkonen must 'drive better' after Spanish F1 qualifying 'mess'

The Finn outpaced team-mate Sebastian Vettel in all three practice sessions in Spain, topping the third one, but made a series of "small mistakes" when it counted in qualifying.

Raikkonen felt pole position was possible but ended up fourth quickest, 0.290s off the pace of Lewis Hamilton, who pipped Vettel by just 0.051s.

"[I need to] drive better - don't make those mistakes," said Raikkonen.

"I struggled for whatever reason to put a decent lap, all the corners together in qualifying.

"I thought I had a lot of speed but I never really managed to make a good lap out of it.

"I ran wide already in Turn 1, but I managed to get out of it and I was still fast.

"Then in Turn 4 and 5 I just ran really wide and lost quite a bit of lap time there.

"Without those [mistakes] there was, for sure, enough lap time to challenge for the first place.

"It's a bit disappointing to make a mess out of it but we'll try tomorrow."

Despite missing out on his first pole since the 2008 French Grand Prix, Raikkonen is encouraged by Ferrari's pace and the performance of its Barcelona upgrade.

"Definitely we are close," said Raikkonen. "The car has been good.

"We have done our own stuff [update] - we have no control over what the others are doing.

"We have a solid package that we try to improve and bring small things here and there.

"Sometimes when it looks a lot different it doesn't mean you are one second faster.

"We've been quite happy with where we've been, especially with these conditions - usually it's not our strongest point so it was a good result today."