Kimi Raikkonen believes he could have beaten teammate Sebastian Vettel's pole time "comfortably" had it not been for some errors on his final Q3 run in qualifying for the Hungarian GP.

The Finn was able to move within two-tenths of a second of his Ferrari partner's best lap as the Scuderia claimed a third front row lockout of the season and first in Budapest since 2004.

Though that margin appeared respectable to onlookers, with Vettel appearing imperious and Raikkonen having been six-tenths off the pace after his first run, the 2007 world champion wasn't pleased with how session ended.

"Actually not too good," Raikkonen said, describing his final flying lap. "The start was good and the end was not too bad but then at the chicane, I braked on the outside kerb and got loose and really threw it away there.

"It was decent enough still for second place but it's a bit disappointing. I felt I had it quite comfortably but couldn't really finish it.”

The result still brought Mercedes' recent run of domination to an end on Saturday's having taken pole at the last four races by a reasonable margin. Ferrari also has a good chance to secure their first win since Monaco, where both drivers started on the front row but it was the driver in second who went on to win the race.

“If you purely look at lap times, yes, but if you look yesterday wasn't the easiest day and today we've been pretty happy with things," Raikkonen said on whether the Scuderia for hold a pace advantage.

"I managed to improve my car for qualifying and I must say we are happy with how they are handling now and so far, so good but tomorrow is going to be a long race and a hard battle so we have to keep going."