I was Lucky to Finish After Hitting a Wall: Raikkonen

Kimi Raikkonen has admitted that he was lucky to finish the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The 2007 world champion revealed that he clipped the wall “at full speed” in the latter stages of the race.

Raikkonen got caught in a first-lap tangle with Force India’s Esteban Ocon and was playing catch up from then on. Somehow, he finished second to Lewis Hamilton in an absolutely mental race. As he entered the start/finish straight with three laps to go, he swiped the wall in the final kink and could have sworn that he would crash.

“On the first lap after the restart on the little kink coming to the last part of the straight I hit the inside wall at full speed,” said Raikkonen.

“I’m pretty lucky that the front wheel didn’t go. I was expecting to go off quite fast, but I was lucky.”

Raikkonen very nearly did not make it onto the grid as well. As it turned out, he “almost put it in the wall on the way to the grid”.

“I had a lot of close moments,” he said. “We were kind of a bit on the limit, it was not the easiest.

“It was not the most enjoyable – some laps very good and some laps I had to try not to hit the wall.

“The feeling was there but not consistently, so I thought ‘OK, I just try to go as fast as I can but a little bit safer’.

“Maybe today certain things worked in our directions but whatever happened in front, it’s self-made issues in many ways.

The Finnish veteran also spoke about the duelling Red Bull drivers who ended the battle with plenty of scars.

“The Red Bulls, look what they were going to do, I was pretty certain something was going to happen later when they got close to each other.

“We stayed out of trouble, in this kind of race – knowing what happened last year, it’s going to pay off.”

A furious Ocon pinned the blame of their first lap collision on Raikkonen. Raikkonen on the other hand, had a different interpretation. According to him, the Force India driver never realised how far he was alongside him.

“I was inside in the corner and I don’t know if he didn’t see but he just turned in,” said Raikkonen.

“He came off worse out of it. I thought he’d know I was there because I was next to him.

“We destroyed the front wing and the tyre, changed the front wing but I didn’t check the car [for more damage].

“The car felt OK, I struggled a bit with the tyres, but I’m sure there was not big damage.”