Kimi Raikkonen disappointed with Lotus pace in China qualifying

Although the Finn will start from a season-best fourth position, he said he was expecting his Lotus to be quicker after the promise of the first two races.

Raikkonen finished over seven tenths of a second off the time set by Mercedes's Nico Rosberg, and although he said he was pleased with his starting position, he expected to be closer to the front.

"It was not too bad, but I am a bit disappointed with the gap to the front and I think we were stronger in the last race than we were here," said Raikkonen.

"The grid position is okay but when you look at the times, I'm disappointed with the pace of the car today. The rest have improved and we have not."

When asked if he could have extracted something more from his car, he said: "No, the car couldn't go much faster, we tried but we couldn't go much faster."

The Finn reckons Lotus's chances of a strong race will depend on the temperature rising for tomorrow's event after a cool day on Saturday.

"Usually our car is good in the race but it would need to be hotter and that should help us and hurt the other teams so we have to see how it goes," he added.