Arrivabene: Raikkonen pace compromised by collision

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Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene has said that damage sustained from a collision with Nico Rosberg left Kimi Raikkonen's car damaged for the remainder of the race, which was why he was not able to challenge for a podium.

“It was impossible to give Kimi more power," stated Arrivabene. "In the impact with Nico, he lost part of the floor and part of the front wing, and from the calculations that we have here from the engineers, he lost more or less 10 points on the aerolog.

"It was quite impossible for him to catch up in this situation. He was making very good laps even with damage on the car and we tried from the pitwall to do all our best with the strategy

"But the others were doing the same, we were aggressive, they were aggressive, we were going in, they were going in. It's a pity that Kimi was not able to go to the podium but after the impact all the chances were going away."

Raikkonen went on to finish the race in fourth place. With his team mate out on the first lap and Red Bull pulling off an emphatic 1-2 victory, it meant that Ferrari lost significant ground in the constructors championship and are now 46 points Red Bull in third place.

"Of course it's going to be tough but we are here to fight, and this is job so we will do our best," said Arrivabene when asked about the prospects of overhauling Red Bull for the runners-up spot in the remaining five races of the season.

"When you are losing points, I'm not telling you that our chances are slipping away, but that doesn't mean that we will give up," he added. "We don't give up."

Arrivabene added that the team didn't feel that performance was an issue that this year and that Ferrari remained on the right path for 2017.

"We were stronger than last year if you look at the timing from qualifying, but it was not enough this year," he admitted.

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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.