Raikkonen: No big step in engine upgrade

Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen has revealed that the latest engine upgrade that the Italian team received has not massively improved the car's performance.

Ahead of Sunday’s Russian Grand Prix, Ferrari upgraded their internal combustion engine but the Finn explained that it is not surprising that they have not made up any ground on the Mercedes cars as they were not expecting a major leap in performance.

"It's working as we expected," the 2007 World Champion revealed to ESPN.

"There are no massive things there, some improvements here and there, with the whole package in the car, so we take it. But it's not like it's making a big, big difference.

"People are very interested in new engines but we put new parts in the car all the time to try to improve everywhere – it's a very normal thing and all the teams do it."

Qualifying fourth after Saturday’s proceedings, Raikkonen admitted that a blunder in the last corner during Q3 was disappointing to say the least and added that he has been having trouble all weekend.

"I ran wide in the last corner on the last lap, but I've been struggling all weekend to put decent lap together," he continued.

“Thankfully it was better in qualifying, but I was still fighting for front-end grip in a few places. Still, it was good enough for third place, but it will all change for tomorrow. Obviously today it was not ideal, it's disappointing but I'll be starting from the clean side of the track, in third place.

"I've been fighting with the set-up of the car the whole weekend, to make the tyres work as we want, as this is a tricky place for that. It could have been a lot worse today, but we'll try to make a good start for the race and go from there."