Raikkonen Laments Costly Error
McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen said he was disappointed to miss out on provisional pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix
The Finn believed he had the pace to finish on top, but a mistake at the start of his flying lap cost him a lot of time and he had to be content with third position behind Jarno Trulli and Fernando Alonso.
"I am a bit disappointed because I ran wide on corner two and lost time, half a second," said Raikkonen. "The car has to be quick, I am just not happy.
"We should have been first but we are very close to the two top guys and it is good for tomorrow."
Raikkonen, who retired from the San Marino Grand Prix while leading, admitted he needs to score points in Spain if he wants to have a chance of fighting for the title.
"The car has been working very well all weekend so I was quite confident," he said. "We still need to finish the races. It doesn't help if you put it on pole if you don't finish the race and that is the area we have to improve. The main thing is to score points.
"We desperately need more points than the others to get back in the Championship. Everyone is working hard, we have improved the car and we can get new parts for the next races."
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
The contrasting fortunes of F1's big-name moves to Ferrari
The many surprise driver cameos of the 2023 NASCAR Cup season
Raikkonen "got unlucky" with COTA chaos on NASCAR return
How national entries in the first month of the season stack up
COTA: F1 and MotoGP double-header possible but not probable
WRC 2025 rules limbo creating “critical” situation for teams
Top five roles on Motorsport Jobs this week
Why F1 2026 worst case fears could be key to new rules success
How the F1 driver market situation sits for each team with 2025 openings
What's been going wrong for Leclerc in F1's tiny margins qualifying game
What the Chinese GP's highlights reveal about its first F1 race for five years
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments