Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen says he will waste no time dwelling on what might have been in the Turkish Grand Prix, after a difficult Istanbul weekend saw him finish third behind team mate Felipe Massa and the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton.

Things started badly for Raikkonen on the Friday, when transmission problems limited his track time. Set-up issues and a driving error then saw him qualify only fourth, and a minor first-turn collision with compatriot Heikki Kovalainen compromised the handling of his F2008 throughout Sunday’s race.

“Even my start wasn't perfect,” Raikkonen said in his column on Ferrari’s website. “I was almost side by side with Heikki and I thought I might have passed him, but then he slowed down to take the first corner and there was no more space for me. I slowed down as much as possible, but I touched his rear tyre with my front wing.

“Meanwhile cars passed on the outside and in the end I was sixth by the end of the first lap. The car was not balanced perfectly, but there was no time to change the wing. It would have cost more time compared to the time I lost using the one I had.”

Despite being unable to challenge for victory, Raikkonen still left Turkey leading the drivers’ championship - albeit by a slightly diminished margin of seven points - and admitted he was not too downhearted by the result.

“Fortunately in the end I did not finish too badly,” said the Finn. “I wanted to fight for a win, but that's racing. Sometimes it just goes wrong since the very beginning of the weekend. So you concentrate to save as much as you can, just like I did in Turkey.

“Afterwards it's always easy to say what we could have done. But I never do that and this case is closed. So far only the weekend at Barcelona was without any problems. I hope that the next one will be at Monte Carlo.”

Ferrari will be using two days of this week’s Paul Ricard test to hone their Monaco package after being soundly beaten by McLaren in last year’s race around the streets of the Principality.