Happy Raikkonen rues qualifying problems

The McLaren driver finished in third place, after having to carve through the field on a one-stop strategy after a suspension failure in Saturday's qualifying pitched him to the back of the grid.

But Raikkonen, who last year also had to charge back from the back a few times, put on another solid performance to finish on the podium, less than 20 seconds behind race winner Fernando Alonso.

The Finn lamented his bad luck in qualifying but was encouraged by the performance of his Mercedes-powered car.

"It was disappointing what happened yesterday because the car was good with a good set-up and we started last," said Raikkonen.

"We didn't really know where we were after testing and people said we were not really good but we improved our position and it has been pretty good so it wasn't a surprise bu we didn't know exactly where we were.

"It's nice to see we were strong in the race and could have been strong in qualifying."

Raikkonen's teammate, Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, had to settle for fifth place despite having started 18 positions ahead of the Finn.