Race stewards decided to take no further action against Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen for unsafe driving in the Monaco Grand Prix.
The Finnish driver broke his front wing against the barriers at the Grand Hotel Hairpin on lap 11 and despite attempting to recover to the pits, pulled off the track at the Nouvelle chicane to retire from the race. Shortly afterwards, the stewards announced Raikkonen would be investigated after the race for continuing to drive his damaged car through Portier and the tunnel.
However, after hearing evidence from Raikkonen and his Ferrari team, the stewards decided no penalty was necessary. The FIA statement read: “The driver, in evidence, stated that he thought initially that he could safely proceed to the pits to replace the nose. Radio messages confirm this. The team advised the driver that he needed to stop the car as soon as possible … and the first available [safe place to stop] was the run-off area at Turn 10.”
After the race, Raikkonen described his miserable afternoon in Monaco: “Today it was very difficult to get any grip in wet conditions. At one point, trying to downshift, I locked the rear a little bit, went straight and then I just couldn’t turn around the hairpin.”
Raikkonen also commented on his decision to continue with a damaged car: “[After losing the front wing under the car] I struggled to go forward and in the end I managed to get the car moving. When the team told me to park the car I was in the middle of the tunnel and couldn’t stop there, so I went through very slowly and then I parked the car. It has been a difficult weekend with a bad end result for me, now we keep working and improving, certainly we can do better next race.”
