Raikkonen answered an emphatic “no” when asked if he now feels like the number two driver at Maranello, because Fernando Alonso received first call for pit service despite running behind the normally ice-cool 2007 world champion in Barcelona.
He was, however, ‘furious’. In a television interview with Sky, the 34-year-old answered “I don’t know” when he was asked who made the decision to pit Alonso first – an advantageous tactic usually reserved for a team’s leading driver.
Asked if he wanted to pit before Alonso, Raikkonen mumbled, shrugged, and stormed off. Later, having been beaten in the race by Alonso, he played down the strategy incident, according to Auto Motor und Sport.
“There was not much between the two,” said Raikkonen. “In the end it makes no difference. It was a very disappointing result for Ferrari.”
But on the slowing down lap after the chequered flag, Raikkonen is reported to have angrily asked on the radio: ‘Exactly who made this [pitstop] decision?”
Raikkonen told the media afterwards, “That was a complicated race for me, with the main problem being a lack of grip and in general, it was very difficult to find the right balance on the car. Going for a two stop strategy proved to be the wrong choice because tyre degradation meant I couldn’t push all the way to the end.”
“We cannot be happy with sixth and seventh places, because we are a long way off where we want to be. It will take time, but we will do our utmost, because we know where we must keep pushing if we want to improve,” added the Finn who won Ferrari’s last world championship in 2007. (GP247-GMM)
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