Ferrari tried to reverse Raikkonen pit call

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Ferrari tried to reverse its decision to pit Kimi Raikkonen under the Virtual Safety Car during the Canadian Grand Prix but was too late.

Raikkonen followed team-mate Sebastian Vettel in pitting during the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) period and going for a two-stop strategy, with Vettel leading at the time but going on to finish second behind Lewis Hamilton. Raikkonen entered the pits just as the VSC came to an end and rejoined in traffic, and the Finn revealed Ferrari tried to react at the last minute.

"We decided to stop but in the last second they tried to call me to stay out because the Virtual Safety Car was ending, but I was already braking into the pit lane and it was too late," Raikkonen said. "Would it have made a lot of difference? I don’t know, you can always speculate.

"It hasn’t been an easy weekend and we tried to get the maximum after the stop. We managed to overtake people , but obviously the end result was not exactly what we wanted, but this is what we got."

And Raikkonen says he was struggling to get heat in his tyres which was hurting his pace as he eventually came home sixth.

"Of course not [happy], but this is what we’ve got. When I had to slow down to save fuel the tyres would cool down and then I struggled to make them work. I lost most of the race on that, trying to get the tyres to work.

"The last sector was the biggest issue because the tyres would lose temperature in the long straight and then I would struggle for a few corners, before the tyres would work well again. Every lap was the same story."

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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.