- Russian GP - Race
Lack of power still Ferrari's problem - Raikkonen
Kimi Raikkonen believes his Ferrari's lack of straight-line speed compared to Mercedes-powered cars let him down at the Russian Grand Prix.
Raikkonen started eighth but got blocked out by Daniil Kvyat in the run down to Turn 2 and spent the rest of the race fighting back to ninth place. He said his car was handling well but lacked the speed on the straights to make progress through the field.
"I thought that the car was behaving pretty well since Saturday, but it's just the lack of speed that we have in a straight line cost us a lot of lap time," Raikkonen said. "That's the end result and hopefully the next race will suit us a little bit better and for sure this was probably harder for us than we expected. We had to try and recover and save fuel and we knew it was going to be difficult, but with those extra things it was making it a bit tricky.
Asked why overtaking was so difficult, Raikkonen added: "It's more to do with that certain cars are very similar speed wise and it's only the Mercedes cars that can be much faster in a straight line. I think this is our lack of speed right now, but this is not the easiest place to overtake. The straights look long but there is a kink in both of the straights and you have to have a good speed.
"At the start I got a pretty good jump off the line, but then I had to back off with a Toro Rosso coming left more and more and I had nowhere to go and had to back off. I lost a lot of places, so after that it was just following people and not really having a chance in a straight line. The car felt pretty okay, but just slow."
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