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Raikkonen escapes punishment for front wing

Kimi Raikkonen has escaped punishment having been investigated by the stewards for his driving after damaging his front wing in the Monaco Grand Prix.

With conditions tricky at the start of the race, Raikkonen slid wide at the Loews Hairpin and hit the barrier, breaking his front wing. The wing got stuck underneath his front wheels, but he tried to continue and dragged the car slowly through the tunnel before finally stopping at the Nouvelle Chicane.

The stewards opted not to punish Raikkonen, saying he had reason to believe he could try and make it back to the pits safely,

"The driver, in evidence, stated that he thought initially that he could safely proceed to the pits to replace the nose," the FIA decision read. "Radio messages confirm this. The Team advised the driver that he needed to stop the car as soon as possible. The driver stated that he wanted to stop the car in a safe place and the first available place was the runoff area at Turn 10."

Raikkonen himself says it was a disappointing finish to "a very poor weekend" having started from 11th place.

"Obviously there’s not a lot to tell you about [it], it was just a very poor weekend," Raikkonen said. "[The conditions] didn’t really make an awful lot of difference. It was very low grip, at least for me and I was driving very slowly, anyhow. Into the corner, when I tried to downshift it just locked the rears and couldn’t slow down. So I took the front wing out, it then got stuck under the car and we had to stop."

Raikkonen said he was unaware of Romain Grosjean trying to pass him on the outside following the incident - leaving both cars stuck against the barrier - and was given the call to retire the car when in the tunnel.

"I was just trying to go around the corner but I couldn’t because the wing was stuck under the car. I was then told the wing was under the car and to stop, but I was in the tunnel when I got the call and I couldn’t stop there! So I just parked the car as quickly as I could, in the chicane."

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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.