2018 Bahrain GP: Kimi Raikkonen reaction and impressions after P2 in qualifying. Kimi's view at the end of qualifying.

Sebastian Vettel took pole position at the Bahrain Grand Prix as Ferrari locked out the front row of the grid under the floodlights at Sakhir. Sebastian Vettel beat Kimi Raikkonen to pole by 0.143s, who was 0.023s ahead of the fastest Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas in third. Lewis Hamilton, 0.262s off Vettel, struggled to hook up a clean lap and will start ninth on the grid once his five-place grid penalty is factored in.

Missing out pole position by a tenth of a second, Kimi Raikkonen says his qualifying result in Bahrain was “far from ideal.”

The Ferrari Finnish driver was in provisional pole after the first run in Q3, up on his team-mate Sebastian Vettel. However, traffic for Raikkonen meant Vettel was able to pip him to P1 by 0.143s. But while the Finn wasn’t happy with the result, he concedes that it is Sunday’s grand prix where position really matters: “For sure not ideal” – Kimi explained, as reported by the Italian media at the end of the qualifying on Saturday – “Far from ideal in the last run with the traffic but you know, what can you do. We are on Saturday and tomorrow is the main thing, the time when we get the points or we don’t get the points. We will see what we can do.” – Scuderia Ferrari’s Finnish driver concluded.