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F1 British GP: Raikkonen blames circuit, conditions for Ferrari struggles

Kimi Raikkonen has justified Ferrari's lacklustre performance in the British Grand Prix as being primarily down to the nature of the Silverstone circuit and the difficult conditions after he could only manage a distant fifth place finish.

The Finn dropped to as low of seventh during the treacherous early stages of the race following an off at the particularly tricky Turn 1 right-hander, but would regain ground in the dry.

Recovering to fifth after Carlos Sainz spun ahead of him and he overhauled Sergio Perez with four laps to go, though the result sees him move clear of team-mate Sebastian Vettel for third in the overall standings, he was not enamoured with Ferrari's performance on British soil.

"The whole weekend has been difficult and I think this was as good as we could get," he said. "We have to improve in all the areas, I'm sure if we got the same downforce as some cars in front of us it would be a completely different story."

Nonetheless, Raikkonen feels the performance represents something of a 'one-off' for Ferrari based on the changeable conditions and a general lack of downforce around the circuit itself.

"We seem to be missing a little of downforce and in a place like this, with these conditions, it's not easy because of that. We need downforce here to be fast, especially with mixed conditions, the wind and everything. You take a big penalty for that but that's how it was here.

"The next circuits are much more normal for us. Downforce will help in any place, it doesn't matter where we go, so that's definitively what we need to be able to challenge in every kind of circuit and beat the Mercedes."

Zdroj: crash.net