Kimi Raikkonen said he was a disappointed after failing to join in with the battle for the front row at the Chinese Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver qualified fourth in Shanghai and was 0.4s off the pace of Lewis Hamilton on pole and teammate Sebastian Vettel in second. With just one full practice session to find the right set-up after Friday's sessions were affected by poor weather, Raikkonen said his car was not behaving as he wanted.
"In the first run in Q3 the grip was just pretty poor overall and then we struggled a bit in Turn 3 through the entire qualifying session," he said. "It was still a bit too understeery and we were losing too much lap time there and could never really get it back.
"This is a lot better than in the last race but obviously with the limited running we had yesterday it was not easy to really get it 100 per cent right. It's getting there, but I'm a bit disappointed. Feeling wise it was a lot better though."
Raikkonen said small problems can mean the difference between pole and fourth with the battle at the front so tight.
"Yes, obviously when there are more guys at the front if you make a mistake or you're not 100 per cent happy you can easily be fourth. Or you can be first, but there's always less of a chance that all of the guys will f--- up; there's always somebody who's going to get it right, so we need to improve and keep going like that.
"If we get things 100 per cent right I'm sure we'll be fine, but we know that if we have a bit of difficulties you lose time and a lot of positions. I'm happier and that's the main thing. Tomorrow we'll see how things are, but it's not been an easy weekend for anybody, with the limited running and the conditions. I'm not too worried, we're happier today than we were two weeks ago and we'll get there."
Raikkonen is hopeful he will resolve the problems with some clear runs in Friday practice.
"I think if we would have run yesterday things would have probably been better today, but it's taking a while and it's not ideal. We kind of know the issue and we need some clear Fridays and I'm sure at the next race we can be happier. Overall it's not too bad, it's just small things and small things make a big difference in lap time. I think in race conditions they affect less, because you don't push so much, but over one lap, when you try to get everything out, it's always going to show in the lap time."