Qualifying is costing us points, says Kimi

Kimi believes that strong qualifying performances can close the gap to Vettel.

Former F1 Champion, Kimi Raikkonen, believes qualifying is what’s holding Lotus back from the rest of the leaders. Sebastian Vettel has qualified in the front rows in the all the races so far whereas Kimi has qualified 7th or below on three occasions. However, both Kimi and Vettel have got on the podium the same amount of times, with the German leading the Finn by 10 points.

“To catch the leaders we need to work twice as hard as they are. It’s no secret that we want more speed from the car in qualifying; it’s so tight up there at the front and we really need to be on the first two rows to fight for victories every time.

For sure we’re in a better position than this time last year, but there’s a long season ahead and it’s too early to say if we can fight for the championships right to the end.

It’s going to be hard to catch Sebastian if he keeps taking good results so we need to start taking more points from him, but you never know what can happen. We’ll keep pushing to improve the car and see where we end up.”

The teams now head to Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix and the beginning of the Europe-based circuits.