• British GP - Race

Kimi should not have rejoined going 'balls out' - Lauda

ESPN Staff
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Three-time champion and Mercedes boss Niki Lauda says Kimi Raikkonen only has himself to blame for his accident at the British Grand Prix.

Raikkonen survived a 47G shunt after crashing into the barriers on the Wellington Straight at high speed. He was recovering to the track after running wide at Aintree but lost the rear of the car as he crossed from the run-off area to the grass and back to the track. The accident also took out Felipe Massa and caused damage to Max Chilton's Marussia, who was lucky not to be caught by a tyre flying from Raikkonen's car.

"I have one criticism for today," Lauda said. "Kimi made a mistake, quite simply he went wide, but why does he come in balls out and then crashes? Hopefully nothing happened, but it was unnecessary."

The incident red flagged the race and Lauda said it was also unnecessary to take so long rebuilding the barrier.

"Why the hell did we then stop for one hour to fix one bottom guardrail? There should have been a quicker fix, and a quicker fix could mean put some tyres in front. There are other ways of doing this. This overnursing F1, overcontrolling F1 drives me mad. This little guardrail issue is another example. They should have fixed it quickly, do something instantly, and ten or 15 minutes later the race would go on.

"There is no way another car will hit at the same place on the guardrail. All these delays, nursing everybody, with five second [penalties] here and white lines there; it's all wrong. This should be stopped. I talked to Bernie and he fully agrees and we have to go back to normal racing."

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