Raikkonen: Start compromised race

Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen says the reason he only finished ninth in the inaugural Russian Grand Prix was because he his race was "compromised a lot after the start".

Raikkonen lined-up in eighth place on the grid and felt he made a strong start, before being squeezed towards the wall by one of the Toro Rosso's.

After that he was always up against it and while he said his Ferrari F14 T was good, he found it difficult to pass.

"It was a pretty normal race," he reflected following the 16th round in the 2014 F1 World Championship.

"Obviously it was pretty difficult to overtake for us and after the start I got a pretty good jump off the line. But then I had to back off because of a Toro Rosso coming left more and more. I had nowhere to go and lost a lot of places.

"After that it was just following people and not really having a chance on a straight line. But the car felt okay.

"It was just slow."

Quizzed more on precisely what went wrong he added: "Obviously [as I said] my race was compromised a lot after the start and after that it was following people, but not really able to attack them."

"In the end I had to fuel save for most of the race [too] and a lot more near the finish. The car felt good, but when you fuel save you cannot push a lot," he continued.

"I thought that the car was behaving pretty well since Saturday. [But] it is the lack of speed that we have on a straight line, I think, that cost us a lot of lap time. In the end though this is the result and hopefully the next race suits us a little bit better.

"We are aware that this year it is hard to fight for the top places, but all the same, we will continue to try our best, starting in Austin [in three weeks time]. That track is very demanding and interesting and I hope I don't have the same problems I had here, so that I can aim for a good result. However, what I wish for most is that all our prayers help Jules [Bianchi] at this difficult time."