Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Disastrous race 'a good lesson' for Ferrari

Ferrari's disastrous Mexican Grand Prix will prove good for the team in the long run, according to team principal Maurizio Arrivabene.

On a difficult afternoon for Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen retired after contact with Valtteri Bottas before Sebastian Vettel crashed out at Turn 7. The result is the first time since 2006 that Ferrari has failed to finish with eat least one car, and Arrivabene says the experience will help the team in future.

“I want to start like this; during the course of this season we touched the sky, [on Sunday] we touched the bottom," Arrivabene said.

"This is a good lesson for all of us, preparing ourselves and the character of the team for next year. I don’t want to blame Kimi in one way, I don’t want to blame Seb in the other way. We don’t have to excuse and they don’t have to excuse, we are a team, so this is my answer.”

And Arrivabene agreed with the stewards decision to not take any action regarding the collision between Raikkonen and Bottas.

“They were racing incidents. It happened in Russia, it happened here, this is Formula One. The most important thing is that nobody has got injured and that is the most important thing, safety. Accidents are part of the show; I don’t want to blame anybody.”

REPORT: Rosberg holds off Hamilton in Mexican GP as Vettel crashes

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.