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Ferrari Formula 1 driver Kimi Raikkonen blamed his failure to reach the third Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying session on bad timing.

While his team-mate Sebastian Vettel headed the queue of cars out of the pitlane at the start of Q2 at Sepang as teams tried to pre-empt the expected heavy rain, Raikkonen was the fifth car out.

He took to the track behind Sauber driver Marcus Ericsson.

"I tried to overtake Ericsson because he was in front of me," said Raikkonen, who had been Mercedes' closest rival in all three practice sessions.

"But at the last corner I couldn't slow down because there were other people pushing me forward.

"We just got the timing wrong. That's how it ended up."

With heavy rain preventing anybody from improving after their first laps, Raikkonen ended up qualifying in 11th position.

But he refused to blame his team for the traffic problem, although Ferrari chief Maurizio Arrivabene had suggested the Finn could have cleared Ericsson sooner.

"I don't know if it helps to blame anyone," Raikkonen said.

"It's easy to say afterwards that I should have been waiting behind Sebastian but the end result is this and whatever we will do now will not change it."

Vettel reached Q3 and went on to qualify second between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg's Mercedes.

Raikkonen added that the Ferrari was fast even though his feeling with it was not perfect.

"It's not often that a car is completely perfect so there are always things we want to improve.

"It's not the ideal feeling with the car, sliding a bit, but it's part of being here in Malaysia.

"It's very hot and I think you can see everybody has had issues.

"The lap time is good but the feeling could be better."