Raikkonen warns he has more speed to come

The world champion, who has struggled to match the qualifying pace of his teammate Felipe Massa in recent races, confirmed that he plans to put an emphasis on grid position this weekend after voicing fears about overtaking on the new street circuit.

"Overtaking? It will be difficult, as always: I hope I don't need to by getting the best position in qualifying," he said. "The setup we have found today is not bad, but there is still plenty of room for improvement."

Raikkonen added that he enjoyed driving on the new track and was looking forward to the rest of the weekend.

"I like driving this track: it is different to other street circuits we have known," he said. "Yesterday, when I walked the track, I thought it would be fun and today confirmed that impression. There are some very quick parts and almost everywhere there's a lot of room, maybe similar to some of the North American circuits used in the past.

"They have really done a good job. Today, our weekend got off to a good start, but obviously it is far too early to say where we are compared to the opposition."

Massa ended the day fourth fastest, 0.2s slower than his teammate, but was satisfied with the results he achieved from day one in Spain.

"The track surface is still very dirty and it is easy to make mistakes which can lose you precious tenths and to do a good lap time you have to be perfect," he said. "I like the track: there's a nice atmosphere and I have to say the organizers have done a good job.

"Today, it was important that we find a good base setup immediately and we managed to do that."

Team principal Stefano Domenicalli added that he thought it was too early to know how competitive Ferrari is this weekend but said he was confident based on free practice.

"From what we could see, given the usual unknowns on a Friday, we can say we are competitive," he said. Whether we will be competitive enough to reach our target will only be revealed starting with tomorrow afternoon's qualifying."