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Raikkonen paid "hefty price" for FP3 mistake
Kimi Raikkonen says he paid a "hefty price" for his mistake in final Japanese Grand Prix practice which hampered his Formula 1 qualifying preparations and forced a gearbox penalty.
Lawrence Barretto
Edited: Oct 7, 2017, 10:46 AM
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The Ferrari driver damaged the left side of the car when he crashed at the Degner 2 right-hander halfway through the one-hour final practice session at Suzuka.
The rear of his Ferrari got away from him mid-corner and Raikkonen failed to regain control before he hit the barriers.
Ferrari inspected the unit and decided it a change was needed ahead of qualifying, which instigated a five-place grid penalty, but repaired the car ready in time to get him out for qualifying.
"I just went off," said Raikkonen. "It was a mistake, and I paid quite a hefty price for it with the penalty and far from ideal preparation for qualifying, but that's how it goes."
Raikkonen could not match his teammate in qualifying, ending up around 0.7s behind teammate Sebastian Vettel.
He qualified sixth, but will line up 10th after his penalty and will begin the race on the soft tyre - rather than the supersoft like most of the top 10 - after using the compound in the second part of qualifying.
"The first lap (in Q1) was far from ideal," said Raikkonen. "On the second lap, I wasn't sure how much there will be grip because it wasn't a great feeling on the first run.
"The biggest issue was very limited running because of the issue this morning. At a place like this where you have to get it right to be able to go fast in the first sector, you pay a big price."
Raikkonen is hopeful of a stronger race on Sunday, given his feeling in the car before his accident on Saturday morning.
"[The feeling] has been OK," he said. "It's a bit tricky because this morning. It's not the greatest feeling in the end of qualifying.
"Before we had the mistake, it's been good. I think the race should be OK. I think we have a good car, we will do our best and see where we end up.
"It's not going to be easy, but I'm sure we should have a pretty decent race."
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