Raikkonen hopes qualifying woes gone

Kimi Raikkonen is hopeful his qualifying problems are behind him as he aims to return to winning ways at this weekend's French Grand Prix

The Ferrari driver won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, but has not finished on the podium since the fourth round in Bahrain.

He sits 26 points behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton in fourth position, but the Finn is upbeat ahead of the Magny-Cours race following a positive test at Silverstone.

"It is a shame that I have not been able to bring better results so far this season," Raikkonen wrote on his official website. "We aim at the best results every time with the team, but it has been quite a while since we got what we were looking for.

"The test in Silverstone was very important as we had some new parts to test. I feel it was a positive step, but to truly find out if we made a real step forward relative to our competitors we must wait until Magny-Cours."

Raikkonen has struggled in qualifying this year, having started from the front row only in Australia.

The Ferrari driver, however, is confident he is getting on top of the problems now that he feels more comfortable with his car.

"Now I feel, more than I did before, that this year it is so important to get on the front row, because it is very difficult to follow other cars," he added. "I have suffered from that too many times during the races.

"I'm feeling now more confident with the car. We had a good balance in the last race so let's hope we can carry that into the next two races."