Kimi Raikkonen ‘struggled’ for grip with medium tyre in Mexico

Kimi Raikkonen has admitted that he struggled for grip with the medium tyre throughout the Mexican Grand Prix.

The Finnish driver qualified sixth, ahead of his team-mate Sebastian Vettel, and moved up to fifth in the early stages on the soft tyre.

He switched to the medium compound at his first pit stop but couldn’t find the grip he had expected from the tyre.

Ferrari opted to pit him again for a new set but it didn’t solve the issue, with Raikkonen passing Nico Hulkenberg late on to finish sixth.

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“My start was not too bad and we were running quite OK,” he explained after the Mexican GP.

“After the first pit stop, though, I struggled to get any good grip with the mediums, so we thought maybe we should try and see if we could go back on track with a new set of the same tyres: but to be honest I had no better grip at the rear.

“It was the first time I was running with these tyres, maybe it’s just how the tyre is. Afterwards it’s easy to say that probably it was not the right thing to do, but I’m happy that we tried.

“It was not easy to pass [Nico] Hulkenberg, it’s difficult when you get close and you have no grip. I don’t know if we touched, I just saw him spin.”