The Finn got away from the grid well and had climbed to second place behind the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton by turn one.
Adrian Sutil in the Force India held on to third ahead of the Brawn pairing and stayed on terms with Raikkonen right until the chequered flag.
Eventually, Raikkonen inherited third place when Hamilton span out of third place after he was jumped by the Brawn pairing in the pit-stops, but the Finn said it was a frustrating result for the team after he pushed so hard during the race.
'I got a very good start, but something happened when Lewis slowed down,” said Raikkonen.
'I tried to go around him on the left, on the grass, but I had to back off, so if I had had some space to go around him, I would have.
'Anyhow, I don’t think it changed the result because then he went off.
'So we were gifted third place, but it doesn’t matter it all counts.
'It’s good points for us, but it’s a bit disappointing when you drive to the best of your ability every lap and not making any mistakes and to be quite far away from the first two.
'So, it’s not the perfect position for me or the team, but at least we scored some points that we need.
'I think we got the most out of the car this week and it’s good for the fans also.
'We’re going to keep pushing as hard as we can, but we know there are cars that are quicker than us and maybe we will be able to challenge them in some races.
'Everything worked well for us.'
The top three qualifiers, Hamilton, Sutil and Raikkonen all opted for a two-stop strategy in the race and, in the second round of stops, both Ferrari and Force India suffered delays.
'I was in a hurry to get out because of the race in the pit-lane,' explained Raikkonen.
'Actually, I hit the lollipop guy as he raised the lollipop a bit and I moved forward a bit.
'He then put it back down and luckily the fuel-rig was out of the car and nobody was hurt.
'We lost a little bit of time, which meant we couldn’t beat McLaren in the pit-stop and to keep the Force India behind also.
'But, it didn’t make much difference.'
Raikkonen's third place means Ferrari extended their advantage over McLaren in the constructors' championship.
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