Kimi Raikkonen has explained his thoughts following the late-session incident that occurred between the Alfa Romeo driver and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz on Sunday.
Sainz pulled himself alongside Raikkonen at Turn 10 of the Bahrain International Circuit in the dying stages of the final pre-season test, resulting in a close call between the two cars.
After both cars ran wide and off the circuit, Sainz stuck to the rear of Raikkonen’s car as they made their way back to the pit-lane, with Raikkonen suggesting the Spaniard was trying to “play games”.
“I don’t think we touched, I don’t know,” Raikkonen said. “I had zero idea that he was there and I saw it at the last minute, I pulled right.
“I don’t know, I guess he was pissed off and tried to play games but anyway. I doubt we even touched, I didn’t feel it.”
Raikkonen ended the day fourth in the timesheets, completing a mammoth 166 laps during the final day of running in Bahrain.
While Raikkonen refused to get carried away with his high position in the standings, the Finn confirmed that he feels the C41 car is an improvement from its predecessor.
“Obviously it’s only testing, you never know what the others are doing but initial feeling, it was better than what it was last year,” Raikkonen said.
“More fast against others than we were at the end of the year but like I said it’s testing. The feeling with the car is a bit better. We’ll see in a few weeks’ time where we will end up.”
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