Kimi Räikkönen admitted it was his mistake at turn three on the opening lap of the British Grand Prix that spun Lewis Hamilton around and earned himself a ten-second penalty.
The Scuderia Ferrari driver tapped the Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport driver into a spin after locking his inside wheel, and after that he felt his afternoon was ‘a bit messy’, even if he recovered to claim the final spot on the podium.
“My start was not perfect; in turn 3 I locked the inside wheel, lost a bit of grip and couldn’t slow down as much as I wanted,” said Räikkönen. “So I ended up touching Lewis’s rear wheel and unfortunately he span.
“I had to serve a ten seconds penalty and after that my race was a bit messy.”
Once Räikkönen took his penalty, it was all about the fightback for the Finn, with quick moves on the likes of Nico Hülkenberg and Esteban Ocon being followed by battles with both Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, while his final conquest was his fellow Finn, Valtteri Bottas.
“Overtaking was difficult, and I fought against the Red Bulls for many laps,” said the Finn. “When I was on my own the speed was ok, but once I was behind them, their wake seemed to affect my car a lot more than the Mercedes did; I was losing a lot of downforce and that upset the balance of the car.
“We were quite a bit faster, but it was really tricky for us to follow them. It was a close fight for quite a lot of times, at the beginning and at the end of the race. Finally we managed to pass them and then I overtook one of the Mercedes.
“It was not an easy day, but I gave my best and made a decent comeback.”
