Raikkonen happier today following difficult Friday and hoping to make up places in the race but admits it could be tough

(Formula1.ferrari.com)

Ferrari head into tomorrow's inaugural Russian Grand Prix at the Sochi circuit starting the race from the fourth row of the grid with Kimi Raikkonen starting the race from 8th place behind team mate Fernando Alonso. The Finn is currently in 12th place in the championship on 45 points, one point behind Sahara Force India's Sergio Perez, he will start the race the race four places ahead of the Mexican.

Speaking about today's action, Raikkonen stated:

'After a difficult Friday, things went better today, the car has improved a lot thanks to a series of changes that worked and we had a good pace. Sure, we can’t claim to have ended up where we would have liked, but compared to the start of the weekend, we have made a step forward and this makes me confident for the race.

Today, it wasn’t easy to put a quick lap together because I still have some difficulties with the front end, especially in the final sector, but tomorrow we will try our hardest to be in the game and make up some places.'

Raikkonen went on to say that he feels that without a Mercedes power unit in the back of your car it will be very difficult to overtake. The Finn said that he struggled to overtake cars during practice on Friday.

Fernando Alonso goes into Sunday's race starting from 7th on the grid and will be hoping for a good race as he is currently in 5th place in the championship having been overtaken by reigning wotld championship Sebastian Vettel.

The Spaniard is set to leave Ferrari at the end of the season with an announcement expected possibly on Monday. Speaking about qualifying, Alonso said:

'Today’s qualifying was more difficult than usual, or at least more complicated compared to the last two race weekends, when we had been able to fight with the front runners. So far here, we have not been competitive, even though the car seems okay and on the set-up front, we’ve changed almost nothing. We can’t single out any particular bad point because we are losing in all the sectors. The truth is just that the cars ahead of us were quicker.

Here, the grip seems to improve with every lap and on top of that, reducing the pit lane speed to 60 km/h all points to a one-stop strategy. Even if the Safety Car could mix things up a bit, I think tomorrow, the start and the first corner could define the outcome of the race, and so we must prepare to tackle the early stages as well as possible.'

© Ben Johnston 2014