Kimi Raikkonen says he questioned Ferrari’s decision to leave him in the garage during the closing minutes of Q1, believing his time was quick enough to make it through to Q2.
It turned out however that it wasn’t, and he was knocked out by Marussia’s Jules Bianchi who managed to improve his time by enough to jump up to P16, putting Raikkonen P17.
Despite his repeated questioning of their strategy, Raikkonen says he trusted the team to make the right call.
“You can, but I trust in the team, believe in the people. The plan was to go out, but the team said ‘no, you are fine, you do not need to go out’. I questioned it a few times, but they said no need and we can see the end result,” he said.
“I cannot always go against advice. We are here as a team, we make decision as a team, and today the outcome was this. As a team in Formula One, as Ferrari, we should not be doing these kind of things. None of us are in our first year. It’s not good for me or the team.”
The Finn refused to get angry over the call and insisted he would move past it and focus on Sunday’s race.
“A mistake has been made. It’s already been a difficult year, so I don’t see the point to shout. The mistake is done. I’ve made mistakes in the past, I will make them in the future. People make mistakes, but there are things we have to change to improve. These are not easy times.”
