Raikkonen: ‘I could have pushed more’

Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen believes that he could have gone faster in qualifying for today’s Bahrain Grand Prix yesterday.

The Finn will line up fourth for the race behind Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg.

He told reporters: "I think there was more grip than I expected. Afterwards it's easy to say I could have pushed a bit harder in certain places but I wasn't sure.

"But the car was OK, the lap wasn't too bad, maybe I just ran a little bit wide in one corner but that wouldn't have cost a lot of laptime. I could have pushed more in certain places because there was surprisingly good grip."

Raikkonen has been off the pace in qualifying so far this year, but admits that he is happy with his performance yesterday as it gives him hope of winning the race.

He added: "It gives you a better chance or a more easy life for tomorrow as long as we make a good start out of it. Obviously then the race can turn out to be different because of that, so that helps.

"We know that we still have some work to do and things to improve but I'd take this rather than fifth or sixth place - I'm kind of happy."

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