Freak understeer wrecks Raikkonen’s qualifying

Kimi Raikkonen lost out on a potential pole position for Ferrari after he suffered understeer on his final flying lap which left the Finn searching for answers.

The Ferrari driver will start down in fifth place for the Canadian Grand Prix, while he saw teammate Sebastian Vettel blast to pole position by less than one-tenth of a second ahead of Valtteri Bottas in the Mercedes, which has left Raikkonen frustrated at failing to show his true potential in Q3.

Raikkonen, who has suffered previous pole position shootout fluffs this year in Azerbaijan and China, says unexpected understeer at Turn 2 forced him to abort his final qualifying lap which forced him out of contention for a first pole since Monaco last year.

“It was completely different from all other laps, I got understeer going into Turn 2 and just couldn’t keep it in the line,” Raikkonen said. “I knew at the corner entry that it was going to be tricky.

“I tried to keep the speed up, because the other option was just to lift off and that would be it, but unfortunately I could and I ran out of tarmac.

“The car has been working well but it will be tricky with the tyres, with different tyres for different teams, so we’ll see.”

Raikkonen, who has experienced an indifferent start to 2018 with three podiums, two DNFs and a fourth place last time out in Monaco, looks to have an almighty task ahead if he is to secure a first Formula 1 race win in over five years.