Raikkonen 'just made the best of it' after T1 clash

Starting the 2016 Chinese GP from third place on the grid, there was immediate disaster for Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen heading into the first corner when a collision with his own team mate forced him off the track and left him limping back to pit lane for repairs.

"Obviously I was hit and that is an unfortunate thing, it as not ideal for the race," said Raikkonen, as ever a master of the understatement.

Sebastian Vettel was later contrite for his role in the incident, explaining that he had been caught out by Daniil Kvyat flying down the inside line "like a torpedo", but that was little consolation for Raikkonen

"Obviously he [Vettel] said 'sorry' but that doesn't change what happened," he said. "I'm sure he didn't try to do it on purpose but it was not ideal for me or for the team. Unfortunately I paid the price for it.

"I lost the front wing and also got a puncture, so but we managed to get back to the pits and start from there. My race was pretty much done at that point.

"I just tried to make the best out of it," he continued. "It was a bad day but we still made something out of it.

"I was stuck a bit, at the beginning, and then managed to start going again. The car felt quite tricky to start with - I donit know if it was for something damaged or whatever reasons - but in the end it started to work a bit better.

"Unfortunately what happened at the beginning penalised us, but you try to pass as many people as you can," he continued, noting that the biggest cheer of the afternoon came when he passed Lewis Hamilton in the closing laps.

"Im happy we could pass him," said Raikkonen. "Im happy to get past all the guys that we, in the end, managed to pass. It is not just because it's him [Hamilton] or Mercedes, it still gives us the same amount of points passing him or somebody else. At least we managed to pass him and the other cars."

By the end, Raikkonen had carved his way through the field and was back up to fifth place again by the time he ran out of laps with no time left to try and catch Daniel Ricciardo for fourth.

"I managed to do a pretty okay race, not ideal, but after what happened in the beginning I guess we couldn't really do much more. It was quite a messy race, in many ways, but this is how it goes sometimes."

"At least we got some points out of it," Raikkonen said with a shrug. "But I'm sure in many ways it could have been better. I guess fifth is better than nothing but it is obviously not what we were looking for. But that is part of racing."

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