Kimi Raikkonen comments on the qualifying session for the 2017 Austrian GP. Kimi will start the race on Sunday in third place.

Scuderia Ferrari Finnish driver Kimi Raikkonen says there were three separate occasions when traffic disrupted his performance during the qualifying session for the 2017 Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring, whick took place this afternoon in Spielberg, but the 2007 Formula One world champion admits that he is still satisfied to secure a promoted third place on the grid.

The Scuderia Ferrari driver was held up on his second quick lap in Q1 by Renault’s Jolyon Palmer that forced the Finnish driver into an extra run on an additional set of ultra-soft tyres at the end of Q1, a situat which eventually required a reshuffle in strategy during the next stage of qualifying. Kimi Raikkonen says that traffic between turn 8 and 9 once again became a big problem on his flying lap on the opening run in Q3, resulting in a difference of half a second to team-mate Sebastian Vettel‘s comparative lap time.

Aiming to make amends on his second and final run, the Finnish driver did not have this opportunity due to the fact that Romain Grosjean stopped his Haas on track, but with all the Q3 contenders unable to improve he stayed fourth in qualifying and third on the grid due to Lewis Hamilton’s five place grid penalty: “I think it was on my second lap, it was an okay lap but obviously on the last corner he [Palmer] slowed down. I don’t know whatever happened but I also had to slow down a lot and then we had to use another set of tyres, which was not the plan. Obviously that was not ideal. Then in Q2 everything was okay, even if we had to change the plan a little bit and then in Q3 it was not too bad, apart from there were some cars in the last sector, between Turns 8 and 9, and that didn’t help.” – Kimi Raikkonen said, as reported by the Italian media at the end of the qualifying session for the 2017 Austrian Grand Prix.

“Then on the second lap there were yellow flags and we couldn’t finish it. It was not ideal but yesterday we had a tricky day, and in qualifying I think the car was pretty okay. It was getting better all the time, so considering how bad or how difficult the car was yesterday, we’re going to start third tomorrow, so that’s at least something good, it could have surely been an awful lot worse.” – the Scuderia Ferrari Finnish driver concluded, as reported by Tuttosport.