Kimi Raikkonen has admitted that Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix could have been worse for him after he received a ten-second stop-go penalty for ignoring yellow flags. This penalty dropped him to eighth place, fighting his way back through the field to fifth before the deployment of the safety car. Despite receiving the penalty, the Finn went on to finish in fourth place for Ferrari, overtaking Valtteri Bottas on the race restart.
“Overall, we have been quite competitive this weekend,” said Raikkonen. “In the race the car was good on the Soft compound, while with the Ultrasofts, after some laps, I was struggling with the rear; the first laps were OK but then I was sliding around.
"When I saw the yellow flags I was on the straight, on the right side and I’m sure I did not go any faster than on any other lap. The penalty was not ideal, but luckily there was a Safety Car and we could recover something," he added. "“I overtook Bottas and then I tried to get close to Ricciardo, but we did not have enough speed to overtake him as he was surprisingly good in race conditions, with good speed in the right places."
Raikkonen went on to say that the result of his race could have been worse, and remained about next weekend's Italian Grand Prix: “I guess the result of today could have been worse, but for sure I was looking for more," he said. "We have to take the good things, we learned from this race and we’ll try to do better next weekend.”
Chris Soulsby
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Bahrain International Circuit - Winter testing
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