Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen started Sunday's Belgium Grand Prix from fourth on the grid and finished in the exact same place. However, the race wasn't as clean cut as the result may indicate with the Finnish racer being handed a ten second stop and go pitlane penalty for ignoring the double yellow flags for the stricken Red Bull Racing contender of Max Verstappen early on in the event.
However, thanks to a safety car intervention due to a collision between the two Force India drivers that left debris on the circuit and a puncture on Perez's car, Kimi was able to catch back up. On the restart the Ferrari driver put in a solid fight with the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo and the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas for third place, and while Ricciardo won that battle, Kimi did manage to get into fourth ahead of Bottas.
Here he stayed until the end of the 44 lap event.
“Overall, we have been quite competitive this weekend. In the race the car was good on the Soft compound, while with the Ultrasofts,after some laps,I was struggling with the rear; the first laps were ok but then I was sliding around,” Kimi explained. “When I saw the yellow flags I was on the straight, on the right side and I'm sure I did not go any faster than on any other lap. The penalty was not ideal, but luckily there was a Safety Car and we could recover something.”
“I overtook Bottas and then I tried to get close to Ricciardo, but we did not have enough speed to overtake him as he was surprisingly good in race conditions, with good speed in the right places. I guess the result of today could have been worse, but for sure I was looking for more. We have to take the good things, we learned from this race and we'll try to do better next weekend.”
