Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen failed to finish for the fourth time in 2015 after a brake failure forced him onto the sidelines. The Finn was demoted to 18th on the grid after an engine penalty and was fighting his way up the order on a drying track. However, once he and his Ferrari team made the switch onto dry tyres, Raikkonen slid off into the wall in the early part of the lap.
“The first part of the race was more or less ok: the car felt pretty good all the time, I had the speed and I was able to fight with other cars. After the tires change I made a mistake, I pushed a bit too much, the rear end got loose, so I went off and hit the wall. The front of the car got stuck on the advertising board, I kept turning the wheels for a while, then I managed to get off and go back on the track. I had a slow puncture on my rear left tire, and I also damaged the right front end: we changed the front wing and the car was ok,but the brake duct had failed and the brakes got overheated, so I had to retire.”
The former Lotus driver remained bullish, though, and intimated that he could have done a job comparable with that of his teammate and took the time congratulate Lewis Hamilton, from one World Champion to another, on his most recent triumph.
“It’s not very nice when you have a race ending like this: we have the right tools but we have to put things together, make no mistakes and achieve a proper result. Congratulations to Lewis and the whole team, he did the best job out of everybody and deserves to be the champion.”
