Kimi Raikkonen accepted responsibility for his jump start penalty in Sochi but said his Alfa Romeo’s performance has been poor since the summer break.
“Obviously the race was my fault,” said Raikkonen, who finished 13th after taking a drive-through penalty for jumping the start.“In the end we got back in the race with the Safety Cars and we managed to un-lap ourselves. But unfortunately we just didn’t have enough speed.
“We could just hang in with Toro Rosso and I could good pass one guy but basically I passed him because they were fighting against each other [and] he run wide.
“But we have to understand, the last four races have been nightmares and we need to figure out what’s going wrong and where and clean up and understand things.
“Out of the last races only Spa we actually [had] speed. The rest has been more or less fighting with it.”
Raikkonen was given two penalty points for the jump start, his first two of the current 12-month period, though the stewards ruled he did not gain an advantage.
“Although car seven [Raikkonen] moved before the start signal, it was determined that he did not gain an advantage by doing so,” they noted. “The penalty prescribed for this infringement, where no advantage is gained, is a mandatory drive-through penalty.”
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Ivan Vinitskyy (@ivan-vinitskyy)
29th September 2019, 15:14
The only advantage Kimi got was knowing his pointless race result before the race even started.
MacLeod (@macleod)
30th September 2019, 8:01
Kimi should have keep going as he would get a penaulty anyways atleast he would overtake several cars instead of starting last AND taking penaulty.
nickthegreek (@nickthegreek)
30th September 2019, 13:22
I don’t think the rules allow that. in that case everyone would jump the start by 5 seconds and pass everyone…
Islander
29th September 2019, 15:17
The lights were actually on for a very long time, but that is no excuse for Kimi. He is now making mistakes he never made before ever, even when he was a rookie.
Kimi, wake up, ffs.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
29th September 2019, 15:42
The length of hold is pretty irrelevant here, Kimi was ridiculously early. If you count the lights coming on, count one more and he was already off!
Usually they hold the lights for at least a couple of seconds, in fact Singapore was mega fast – maybe that inspired him?. I dunno what the specific rule is nowadays for the min / max hold time?
erikje
29th September 2019, 16:03
erikje
29th September 2019, 16:04
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/F1_start_light_sequence_animation.gif
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
29th September 2019, 17:20
erikje
Yes, that’s what I thought, but I can’t remember the last time that they waited 4 seconds. Definitely didn’t in Singapore. That’s why I think its changed.
Jere (@jerejj)
29th September 2019, 16:05
@Islander – I didn’t feel they were on any longer than usual.
@eurobrun – I didn’t feel they switched off mega fast in Singapore. France and Belgium, yes, the lights went off faster than usual, but the rest have been more or less the same.
Islander
29th September 2019, 16:30
The loss of Simone Resta to Ferrari seems to have affected Alfa and Kimi adversely, but it’s worked wonders for GIO…
OOliver
29th September 2019, 18:59
Perhaps his age of beginning to show.
Miltiadis (@miltosgreekfan)
29th September 2019, 19:01
Really strange return after the summer break for Alfa Romeo-Kimi. Initially with the whole Ericsson ”saga” and whether he could replace him or not, then the multiple mistakes in Italy by Kimi and the team, a fruitless gp at Singapore and this incidents. I don’t know whether the team got angry at him for injuring his leg or something, but there is something strange going on after the break, affecting both sides.