Raikkonen: McLaren will be hard to beat

The Finn will start from the second row of the grid after being unable to match the pace of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

Raikkonen will also start from behind BMW-Sauber's Nick Heidfeld, third today.

The Ferrari driver admitted his car was just lacking pace and expects McLaren will be very hard to beat tomorrow.

"The car was pretty good in the last run but it was just not quick enough," said Raikkonen.

"Maybe we have much more fuel than the others, but it looks like the McLaren is definitely very strong here. I'm not too worried about the BMW, I think with the race pace we should be stronger than them.

"I know from past experience with McLaren that they are always fast in Monaco and here, so I knew that they would be difficult to beat here. I think in the race that we should be in better shape than in qualifying, so we'll see what happens tomorrow. But it was not really a surprise."

Raikkonen is 18 points behind Hamilton in the standings with seven races remaining, and he is aware that he needs to finish ahead of his rivals if he is to have a shot at the title.

"Well, I really need more points than them [the McLaren drivers], so I will do everything I can to try to beat them. But like I said, it's going to be difficult," he added.

"I expect that we are going to have a stronger race car than we had in qualifying; I had quite a good feeling with the car in the longer runs, so we'll see what happens tomorrow. It's a long race, so we will keep pushing.

"I would rather start from third place, but the BMW got in front of us, so that's probably going to hurt a little bit. Here it is usually quite slippery off the racing line. But lately our starts have been really good, so hopefully that will recover something."

Felipe Massa completed a poor day for Ferrari, the Brazilian failing to make it into the top ten after a communication problem cost him dearly.

He will start from 14th place.

"I had a communication problem, actually. I did my lap time in Q2 and made a mistake at the last corner, and I had to get another set of new tyres," Massa said.

"I came in, we changed the tyres, switched on the car, but we didn't put in the fuel. I went to go out and I didn't have the fuel in the car, so I had to stop.

"Then we pushed the car back but the tyres were cold and I couldn't do a good laptime because the tyres were completely cold and didn't have any grip. We'll try to recover tomorrow, even if it is going to be difficult."