• Malaysian Grand Prix

Magnussen 'destroyed' our race - Raikkonen

ESPN Staff
March 30, 2014 « Mercedes was perfect - Hamilton | Differing versions of events at Williams »
Kimi Raikkonen was unable to hold off Kevin Magnussen © Sutton Images
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Kimi Raikkonen was left ruing his early collision with Kevin Magnussen after admitting the collision ruined any hope he had of a meaningful challenge in Malaysia.

Raikkonen fancied his chances of a podium finish in the dry from sixth on the grid, but contact with Magnussen at the start of the second lap gave him a left rear puncture. He spent the remainder of the race out of the points and ended 12th, far off where he felt his form in free practice suggested he could have been and a long way off team-mate Fernando Alonso in fourth.

"I don't know much about it," Raikkonen said. "All I know his front wing hit me on my wheel but I didn't feel anything, so I have no idea when it was. Obviously it destroyed our race, not very good for us but I can't say much as I have not seen it. On Friday and Saturday we have been pretty ok until qualifying, which wasn't ideal and we weren't as happy with. We were still in an ok position for the race. I got a pretty good start but then got that issue with the rear tyre. I think how we started was good and for sure we could have been up there with Fernando. It all went down when I got hit so that was that. It is a shame because without it we could have had a pretty ok race. It's not where we want to be with the guys at the front. They are too fast right now but it is good for what we expected."

Despite a frustrating race at Sepang, Raikkonen is confident upgrades can improve Ferrari's prospects further in Bahrain next week.

"Hopefully next race we will have some new parts for the car I've been asking for and hopefully it makes a change in a nice way. Hopefully the front end will feel nicer. We will have to wait and see how we do on Friday there. I know on the test there was a some difficulties with handling but hopefully the new parts can sort that out. The new updates should make us a bit happier with the front end. It's a new part and we don't know if it will do what we expect. We have a good understanding of where we want to go and what to do. I expect if we make that happen we can go much faster, but how quickly we can do that we will see. All the good things we did a lot better here so we are going in the right direction."

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