Indian GP: Kimi Raikkonen admits he expected more from qualifying

The Finn, still with a mathematical chance of clinching the title this year, was unable to match the pace of his main rivals on Saturday, finishing nearly a full second off pole position man Sebastian Vettel.

Lotus driver Raikkonen said his car simply had no grip during the grid-deciding session.

"We changed the car after this morning's session and we were quite confident heading into qualifying. Unfortunately, we didn't seem to have any grip this afternoon so it was much more difficult than we thought," said Raikkonen.

"I'm quite disappointed to be starting from seventh as I thought we had a much better car than that."

Team-mate Romain Grosjean completed a disappointing day for the team, the Frenchman qualifying in 10th position.

Grosjean too said he had been aiming for much more.

"I was expecting better so I'm a little disappointed, however in terms of strategy P11 has one advantage as you're the first car that can choose which tyres it will start the race on and I have a couple of new sets in my pocket for tomorrow," he said.

"I wish I could have got through into Q3 and lacking two hundredths of a second to make it there was frustrating.

"On my second timed lap I was doing well, but for whatever reason the car snapped on me and I lost time. It was difficult to get everything right, but we're looking strong to score some good points tomorrow."