Raikkonen unhappy with car handling

Raikkonen was third in the morning session, but dropped down to sixth in the afternoon, over half a second behind McLaren's Fernando Alonso.

The Ferrari driver, however, said there is still time to recover.

"I am not very happy with the handling of my car in these two sessions and obviously we have a lot to do in order to improve," said Raikkonen.

"But this is only Friday and there is no point in making a drama out of it as far as qualifying and the race are concerned.

"I wasn't able to get a really clear picture of the performance of the two types of tyre, especially on the first lap, firstly because of traffic and secondly because of that quick short shower."

Teammate Felipe Massa, second in the morning, finished right behind Raikkonen in the afternoon.

The Brazilian admitted it is still too early to judge where Ferrari stand in comparison with rivals McLaren.

"Overall, I am happy with the day," he said. "In the final series of laps I could have done a good time but there was a yellow flag and I had to slow. It's hard to say at this stage of the weekend if we are faster or slower than our closest rivals, but we are definitely competitive.

"We worked a lot on the set-up and towards the end of the day we found some good solutions. There is still a slight unknown as far as tyre performance is concerned, especially on the softer ones over a long run, while the harder ones however are more consistent."