Kimi Raikkonen said his crash during qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix was on a slowing down lap and caught him by surprise, but that there was no major.damage to his Ferrari.

Raikkonen hit the wall coming out of Turn 3 at the end of Q2 in the rain, and will begin Sunday’s race from 11th position. But he played down the incident, and believes his grid position reflects his competitiveness at the moment.

“I was just playing around with the switches or something and got a little bit of wheelspin and touched the wall,” Raikkonen said. “It was just one mistake. I just got a little bit of wheelspin. I wasn’t pushing anymore anyhow but just got wheelspin. I just couldn’t catch it. That didn’t change the fact that we would not have gone through anyhow.

“I think we had some speed, but it was just the traffic, so obviously with those things it’s a bit tricky. I didn’t have any more time to do an extra lap [when I spun] so I would have come in [the pits] anyhow.”

Raikkonen revealed he is having difficulties with the car this weekend.

“Overall we probably struggle a bit on our set-up. We knew that already from testing. We are waiting for new stuff that we want to try. Unfortunately that will not happen overnight.”

Raikkonen said the parkland circuit was particularly difficult to drive in the wet.

“It seems to be tricky here for some reason. For some reason when we come here it doesn’t turn out to be nice weather. It can be like it is now or sunny like it was yesterday. That’s how it is. Tomorrow is another day.”