Scuderia Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen was happy with his overall performance at the Singapore Grand Prix this weekend, but questioned strategy calls made by the team at a crucial part of the race.
After overtaking Mercedes AMG PETRONAS driver Lewis Hamilton to move into third place and ahead of the struggling world champion on track, the Finn was baffled as to how the Brit was then able to jump him at the next bout of pit stops, and questioned what may have been had the team chosen to keep him out on the soft tyres.
“It was a good and solid race, the car was behaving well and we had a pretty good speed.
“Obviously it was very difficult to overtake, but at one point Hamilton made a mistake and I managed to pass him, then after the pit stop he got the position back. We lost the place there.”
“I don’t know how and why they managed to jump us, and I don’t know what would have happened if we would have stayed out. Now we have to go through everything, see what happened and what we could have done better.”
With Nico Rosberg successfully completing a long final stint on the soft rubber, which saw him hold on to narrowly win the race in the end, it looks as though Ferrari may have made the wrong strategy call in terms of Raikkonen on Sunday.
Although the 36-year-old finished the race higher up the order than his grid placing, which is a positive result for the Maranello based team, the Finn believes the squad need to be faster if they are going to start challenging for wins.
“Today we gained one place from the starting position, but of course this is not the result we are looking for, we are trying to be in position to win, but we need to make the car a bit faster.”
