Ferrari has urged Kimi Raikkonen to improve after the Finn’s disappointing race in Bahrain.

Some observers were surprised when the highly rated 27-year-old lagged the leaders at the safety car restart in Sakhir, after Raikkonen also made a poor getaway when the red lights went out and was outpaced all weekend by teammate Felipe Massa.

“I have to say that he has to think of a better way of managing this part of the job,” Ferrari’s technical director Mario Almondo, referring to the botched restart, told reporters.

The Italian also confirmed to La Gazzetta dello Sport that Raikkonen did not have “any specific technical problems” in Bahrain, while Massa won.

The Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport, meanwhile, summed up Raikkonen’s weekend by concluding that the Finn did neither “well nor particularly badly” at Sakhir.

Kimi, however, was reportedly critical of his race strategy on Sunday, reckoning that the Ferrari pitwall should have given him a shorter middle stint to ensure he got past Fernando Alonso in the pits.

He said: “Hopefully in the next test we can find something which is a bit better for me.”

Ferrari’s sporting director Stefano Domenicali defended Raikkonen, arguing that a team could not be unhappy with a driver that is jointly leading the drivers’ championship.

“He is new at Ferrari and he is still developing with us,” Domenicali said of Kimi.

“I think he is very happy with us and we are very happy with him.”

Ferrari has an upcoming aerodynamic test at Vairano before the Italian squad joins the group action at the pre-Spanish grand prix test.

[GMM]

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