F1: Raikkonen hurt by perfect storm

Kimi Raikkonen says the corner entry problems that have hurt his 2014 Formula 1 campaign are being compounded by a perfect storm of harder tires and traction issues.

The Finn has faced difficulties since the start of the season in getting comfortable with his car under braking and on the turn-in to bends. It was initially suspected that the key to overcoming this was in sorting out the new brake-by-wire systems that have changed the way that cars handle this year.

Despite a huge effort by Ferrari to help Raikkonen, the Finn has been unable to turn things around and is still struggling to regularly get on the pace of teammate Fernando Alonso. After another difficult weekend in Austria, Raikkonen said that dealing with his problems was particularly complicated because of many factors coming together.

When asked if the technical complexity of the 2014 cars explained why progress had been so slow, Raikkonen said: "Not really, the issues are not there. It's really about how the car handles, what I prefer, and the way the tires work. It's a combination of that.

"We have a lot of work to do with the car now, and we are missing traction and we are missing a bit of grip on the mechanical side. We try somehow to balance it out and try to have a front end on the car, but it is very, very difficult. I hate it when there is no front end on the car.

"And right now, if we sort out the front end we lose the rear and it is trying to balance it out - and somehow get it working. We have a lot of work to do before we have good things, but for sure we will get there."

Raikkonen said that the team had experimented with a new approach in Austria to try to improve things, but it had not delivered what was expected.

"We tried something different since Saturday onwards and I don't think it made an awful lot of difference in the end," he said. "In certain areas [in the race] it was totally missing, and it was a similar thing in qualifying, but once we decided to go way we had to stick with it."

Raikkonen has scored 19 points so far this season, and lies 12th in the drivers' standings. Teammate Alonso has scored 79 and its fourth overall.