Kimi Raikkonen was disappointed to get a ten-second stop and go penalty during the Belgian Grand Prix for failing to slow down under yellow flags, but was happy to salvage a fourth place finish at the end of the race.
The Scuderia Ferrari driver was adjudged to have failed to observe the yellow flags on the Kemmel Straight while marshals removed the stricken car of Max Verstappen from the side of the road, and the Finn dropped down to seventh.
He managed to get back up to fifth before the safety car was deployed, before moving ahead of Valtteri Bottas into fourth on the restart. He was unable to do anything about Daniel Ricciardo however, with the race pace of the Red Bull Racing driver surprising Raikkonen.
“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.
“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.
“I guess the result of today could have been worse, but for sure I was looking for more. We have to take the good things, we learned from this race and we’ll try to do better next weekend.”
