Kimi Raikkonen has said that he was lucky to finish the 2018 Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix on the podium after a late clip of the wall, with the Finn expecting to lose a front wheel.
Raikkonen hit the inside wall at full speed with three laps to go, but his Ferrari did not sustain substantial damage, and he went on to finish second in an action-packed race.
Raikkonen was also involved in a first-lap collision which caused Force India’s Esteban Ocon to retire, and Raikkonen to drop down from his sixth place starting position.
However the chaos of the dramatic finish in Baku helped him to recover to his best finish of 2018.
“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.”
“I had a lot of close moments,” he added. “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 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.”
