Kimi Raikkonen has failed to finish the Spanish Grand Prix after being involved in a collision on the opening lap. The Scuderia Ferrari driver was tapped from behind at the first corner by Valtteri Bottas and that pushed him into Max Verstappen, which meant the Finn had to pull over to the side of the track with broken front left suspension.
Raikkonen reckons he did not see the footage of the incident, but is sure that he left Bottas enough room going into the corner.
"I got hit on the right rear corner, I think it was Bottas, and then obviously the car jumped because of that and I went into Max. There was nothing I could have do at that point. I haven’t see the images, but the reason was I got hit from behind and then ended up touching with Max", Raikkonen says.
"Obviously [the DNF] was not ideal. I had a good start but still on the straight I got blocked once by Bottas, I had to lift a little bit and go to the left. Then, into the first corner, I left him space and somehow he managed to touch my right rear corner. When you get hit from behind there’s not much you can do, so between Max and me there was nothing I could do.
"I think I left Bottas enough space, and all I know is I got hit from the right rear corner. I’m pretty sure Bottas had enough space but I don’t know what happened.
"It was a bit of a weird accident. Obviously it’s a disappointing end of the race, especially after making a good start. The car had been quite OK the whole weekend, so it is quite disappointing to finish the race in the first corner. We’ll try on the next one.
"Conditions were quite tricky all weekend as there was a lot of wind. But the car was behaving well, yesterday I didn’t put a very good lap together but apart from that we’ve been quite happy all weekend. Obviously the end result is very bad but we’ll try in the next race again. At least we’re up there and we can challenge.
