Kimi Raikkonen made his frustration pretty clear after an error at the final corner ruined what was looking like a near-certain pole position lap for the Azerbaijan GP.
The Finn was two-tenths up on his teammate Sebastian Vettel’s initial best time through the first two sectors, but would have a big slide off the exit kerb of Turn 16 which cost him a huge amount of time.
It rounded off a pretty difficult session for Raikkonen too after he was forced to switch to the Ultrasoft tyre in Q2 to ensure participation in Q3 after errors on both his attempted laps on the Supersoft compound.
Though blustery winds were causing problems at different parts of the track, including the final real turn, the 2007 champion admits that was not a factor in what happened.
“No, obviously it was a f***-up,” he said. “A mistake. It cost us quite a few places so not the greatest end.
“I don’t know, I took it easier even on the entry because obviously it’s been a bit trickier with the wind all day.
“It just got sideways, I got it back but I knew already it was all gone because it’s flat out and a long straight [to complete the lap].”
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The result is the Ferrari driver will start the race from sixth on the grid and will be a less favourable strategy than those in front, however, it also marked another occasion where Raikkonen had been faster than Vettel until it really mattered.
“Right now I’m disappointed with what happened today,” he said when asked by Motorsport.com about the inability to convert his strong practice pace into a pole position
“I’ve been a few times disappointed. This is a different story and today, what can you do? I can only look in the mirror. It’s painful.”
His moment also benefitted Daniel Ricciardo, as the Australian used his slipstream along the main straight to beat Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen into fourth.
