Kimi Räikkönen says a distant fifth place at the Chinese Grand Prix was a “far from ideal” result after struggling with the front end of his Ferrari SF70H.
The Finnish driver started the race from fourth on the grid in damp conditions but lost a place to Red Bull rival Daniel Ricciardo on the opening lap, before making ground through the pit stop phase, as drivers switched to slick tyres.
However, Räikkönen slipped behind Max Verstappen and his Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel as the race progressed, and was unable to overhaul Ricciardo, a feat Vettel managed within a handful of laps.
Alongside his front end struggles, Räikkönen also admitted Ferrari should have serviced him sooner during the second pit stop phase, having kept him out for longer than his rivals.
“It was not a very strong race, the car felt good with fresh tyres, but we seemed to lose the front very quickly and I was struggling,” he explained.
“In a place like this that’s very tricky and gives a lot of lap time away.
“I feel that, even with that, we should have had a better result: maybe we could have changed the tyres a bit earlier.
“But it’s always easy to speak after the race, now we have look at the data and understand.
“This result is far from ideal but this is what we have got, hopefully next week we can make things better.”
Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne has now said the team needs to sit down with the 2007 F1 world champion and find out why his form has dropped.
