Kimi Raikkonen admits Ferrari need more pace after finishing just off the podium for the third race in a row at Sepang.
The Finn wanted to push for more in his Ferrari but admitted fourth place was all he could get out of the car.
Raikkonen started the Malaysian Grand Prix from sixth, behind his teammate Sebastian Vettel, but after Vettel had a tangle with Nico Rosberg and Max Verstappen at Turn 1, Raikkonen found himself promoted up to third on track.
It was not to last, however, as Rosberg stormed through the field on a recovery drive and demoted the Finn back off the podium. It was an aggressive move from Rosberg at Turn 2, as he barged his way passed with a lunge up the inside. The German was handed a ten-second time penalty for contact that was made to Raikkonen’s car in the
Indeed, the German was handed a ten-second time penalty for the contact that was made with Raikkonen’s car but he had the pace to pull this gap out at the end, crossing the line 12 seconds ahead of the Ferrari.
Raikkonen did not have a lot to say about the incident with Rosberg. He did not appear to be angry with the pass the German made on him when questioned about it after the race.
“When Rosberg passed me I suddenly had to turn right to avoid him,” Raikkonen said in his press conference. “I knew he was going to hit me and we both would have probably been out.
“My rear floor was damaged because of that and Nico got penalised. After that, I did my best to keep the ten seconds gap to him, but unfortunately, it was not enough to get a better result.”
After the last race in Singapore, Raikkonen made it clear that he felt the team needed to find some more pace if they were to challenge for race wins before the end of the season. It is a sentiment he reiterated today.
“Overall the car was not too bad and the handling was quite ok, but the pure lap time was not there. We were missing speed and we never had the chance to challenge the cars in front .
“Obviously we want to be higher up, but now we have to take what we get. We’ll try to improve and push forward to make the car faster and be able to challenge the others.”
Raikkonen will be hoping Ferrari can unlock some more pace before the next round in Japan next weekend, but with such a short turnaround this may not be possible. It is clear to say that Ferrari has had an extremely unlucky year this year, with a lot of opportunities for race wins slipping through their fingers and opportunities being missed out on.
With Red Bull now looking like the team to gain from Mercedes mistakes and be a strong second in the Constructor’s Championship, Ferrari will be doing all they can to rectify this. Whether it is possible before the end of the season or whether the Scuderia will have to wait until the regulation changes for 2017 is yet to be seen.
