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Kimi Raikkonen says he needs to break his "habit" of troubled Formula 1 qualifying sessions as he rued another lost opportunity at the Chinese Grand Prix.

While team-mate Sebastian Vettel put his Ferrari in third place on the grid, Raikkonen could manage no better than sixth after losing time in the first section of the lap.

Raikkonen said he was not sure why things were so difficult in the first part of the lap but says that the time for excuses is now past.

"It is just how difficult it was in the first three corners in the last try," said Raikkonen when explaining what had gone wrong.

"I lost so much time in corner three basically that I was a bit surprised.

"The car had been behaving very well and in the last run it was not so easy there for some reason.

"The laptime was pretty much done there - you couldn't catch up."

Raikkonen was convinced that the change of wind direction had not been a factor.

"Obviously it was different from yesterday but I don't know what happened," he said.

"I got a loose car and lost an awful lot of time from that corner to the next corner.

"Maybe it is my fault. Maybe it just happened. But it is disappointing anyhow.

"It is not a complete disaster, but it seems to become a habit. I would rather get rid of it.

"For the race we have a good car. It has been behaving well all weekend.

"Today was not ideal with the last set of tyres, but we will do our best for tomorrow and see where we end up."