• Spanish Grand Prix - Qualifying

Mercedes too quick for Lotus - Raikkonen

ESPN Staff
May 11, 2013 « Massa and Gutierrez hit with grid penalties | Tyres went off in sector three - Webber »
Kimi Raikkonen will start from fourth on the grid behind the two Mercedes' and Sebastian Vettel © Sutton Images
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Kimi Raikkonen says Lotus was unable to match Mercedes' pace in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

After close practice sessions, Mercedes secured a front row lock-out with Nico Rosberg taking pole position ahead of Lewis Hamilton. Behind them, just a quarter of a second covered third to seventh, and Raikkonen - who qualified fourth - said he wasn't concerned or surprised by Mercedes' advantage over the rest of the field.

"[The car] has been pretty OK all weekend," Raikkonen said. "Qualifying was a little bit more windy than this morning and it makes it a bit more tricky in the last part. I think for sure we didn't have the speed to Mercedes but we've seen that before in the last two races they've been very strong in qualifying, so I think we'll be pretty OK."

Raikkonen also said that Lotus might still be able to find an advantage even if it can't complete a two stop strategy.

"I don't know what the others are doing and I don't know exactly our plan yet. We have to go through that and see what we're going to do; I guess it depends a lot on how it looks at the beginning of the race. I don't really expect that we can run less stops than the others but sometimes you can stop at a different time even if you do the same amount of stops."

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