Kimi Raikkonen is concerned he is making a habit of underperforming in qualifying this year after another disappointing result at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Raikkonen will start Sunday's race sixth behind both Red Bulls with very few chances to overtake on the tight and twisty circuit. He was over half a second slower than Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel in third and said problems getting the tyres in the right operating window for qualifying are reoccurring at each race.
"It's obviously a very bad result in the end and obviously it's difficult to overtake here, so it's not a very happy day," he said. "But it is what it is right now and we try to make a good start and go from there tomorrow, but obviously it is going to be a long race if we are stuck behind some cars. We will try to make the maximum out of it whatever happens tomorrow.
"We seem to manage to get it wrong every race, so we need to work on something to try to improve it. We don't put ourselves in very good positions for Sundays and obviously it makes our races difficult. Obviously when you are stuck behind you spend time trying to get past cars and then you miss out on the fight at the front. But it's part of the game."
Raikkonen said the tyres were working better on his second attempt but when he came up behind a Toro Rosso he knew any chance of a good result was effectively over.
"It makes no difference right now, does it? I mean, I had a pretty okay first lap and I had one more lap and then there was a Toro Rosso so I had traffic on the second lap. I came in because I was too slow already and obviously it was pretty disastrous. The car felt okay but it was hard to get heat in the tyres. The end result is what it is and we will try to do a good race tomorrow.
"[It was sliding] more on the front, but obviously on the rear it was a bit hard to push because the front does not grip well. Obviously then you don't go as fast as the tyres really need and you it's a circle. It's crucial to get clean outlaps to get the tyres working as well as possible, but it didn't happen today and we paid the price."