Kimi Raikkonen said he was only “a bit off” the ideal line before the mistake which compromised his final qualifying attempt in Canada and saw him drop to fifth on the grid.
Qualifying was finely poised going into the final runs, with Raikkonen in third position, albeit 0.3s behind Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel. At the start of his second Q3 attempt, Raikkonen’s car got loose coming out of Turn 2 and the Finn dipped a wheel onto the grass, costing time and momentum, prompting him to bail out of the lap.
By the time the chequered flag had fallen on the session, Raikkonen was in fifth position.
When asked if he felt he could have improved without the mistake, he said: “Yes, for sure, but that’s how it is.”
Disaster for Raikkonen, whose final flyer ends on the grass ????#CanadianGP ???????? #F1 pic.twitter.com/it6CeekLMK
— Formula 1 (@F1) June 9, 2018
The 2007 world champion said the moment which led to the mistake caught him off guard as he had not encountered anything similar through that part of the track all day.
“Obviously the lap was finished there, at that point. I suddenly got a lot of understeer entering Turn Two, but I had no choice but to try to get out of it as quickly as I could, but obviously I was off the line and that screwed up my speed. I was just a bit off, but that was it.
“It was completely different from all other laps, got understeer going into Turn Two and just couldn’t keep it in the line. I knew at the point, at the corner entry, that it was going to be tricky, so I tried to keep the speed up, because the other option was just to lift off and that would be it, but unfortunately I could and I ran out of tarmac.”
Teammate Vettel showed what might have been for Raikkonen, giving Ferrari its first pole position at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve since 2001.