• Austrian GP - Race

Ferrari slowed me down after two laps - Raikkonen

ESPN Staff
June 22, 2014 « Renault performance 'unacceptable' - Red Bull | Ricciardo frustrated with himself »
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Kimi Raikkonen says it is unacceptable that Ferrari asked him to slow down and cool his brakes after just two laps of the Austrian Grand Prix.

Raikkonen endured another frustrating race behind the wheel of the F14 T, recording just a single point. When told he needed to make two tenths behind Jenson Button in the middle stint Raikkonen replied "give me more power then", but he says the problems with his Ferrari had started far earlier than that.

"Yes we had [power] go down but also after two laps I had some brake issues, I was meant to cool the brakes," Raikkonen said. "I tried to fight against the guys in front of me as well as behind me so it's quite difficult after two laps when you've been asked to slow down.

"Those two things should not be happening and we they to fix them. We cannot go into a race and start slowing down after two laps because of issues like that. We are not fast enough to give up any times anyhow so hopefully there is a lot more work to be done."

Raikkonen is also confused as to why Ferrari kept him out for so long during his first stint when he had clearly lost the performance from his tyres. Running third, Raikkonen started struggling on his worn supersoft tyres and dropped behind Sergio Perez - who was yet to pit - and Nico Rosberg.

"For me it was very bad timing for the pit stop. My tyres were not good and I lost two places on my in lap. I needed to really stop earlier but I don't know the reasons why we stopped at that point but it obviously cost us some places. With the speed that I had there was no way to get anything back. Obviously that was not very good."

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