Formula 1 driver, Kimi Raikkonen was able to race at the front in the Italian Grand Prix conducted at Monza but only for a brief period since he was facing difficulty with the tyres. This resulted in an unfortunate drop in points.
Raikkonen stated that he saw an opportunity when the safety car and red flag came out in the race since he could gain pace and move up to the fourth position.
Raikkonen had the option to choose one new set of softs or one new set of hards to be fitted after he started the race on mediums. The team opted for the softer compound so that Raikkonen could fight for the position in the opening laps.
However, Kimi Raikkonen was unable to manage his soft tyre compound since they do not last long. This resulted in him dropping into 13th place.
Raikkonen stated, "I wouldn’t say that we are right up there when we finish P13. I think the car was okay in the first part of the race. And also after the pit stop. But then the problem was we had no new tyres apart from the soft, so we were f***** at that point.
Also See:F1 Teams Are Planning New Tyre Strategies For Tuscan GP
"I think we could’ve done a good race if we’d had some other tyres than the soft left… I don’t know what positives you can take from that result."
Alfa Romeo's team principal Frederic Vasseur was a little more reflective since he saw both Alfa Romeo cars restarting after the red flag. He was appreciative since the team was able to at least keep up in the top 5 positions.
“It was a very bizarre race, one that has given us the full spectrum of emotions,” Vasseur admitted.
“We made a good start and our race pace was good in the first stint. The Safety Car shuffled the pack and we found ourselves towards the front of the field, but unfortunately we picked up a penalty for Antonio at his pit stop, which compromised his race.
“Under the red flag we had to choose between the only tyres we had left available, the used hard tyres we had on or new softs, as we had no more mediums left.
"We went for the softs: they helped us at the restart, with Kimi running up to P2, but unfortunately our rivals’ tyre advantage in the long run meant we ended up losing ground as the race progressed.
“We were close to a good result but it is what it is: we made progress both in terms of qualifying and race pace and we need to keep pushing to improve.”
