Crash Raikkonen caused by "urgent problem" on steering wheel

Kimi Raikkonen has been around in Formula 1 for quite a few years now, but there was not much evidence of that during the Portuguese Grand Prix. The popular Finn collided with the back of his teammate Giovinazzi and brought out the safety car with this action. Something you would not expect with someone with the track record of The Ice Man.

Adjustments to steering wheel

Raikkonen, now that the clouds of smoke have cleared, says he is guilty as charged: "It was actually my fault," he tells Formel1.de. "I checked something on the steering wheel and changed a setting that I had initially set wrong when I came out of the last corner. As a result, I bumped into him. So that was obviously my mistake."

The changes to his steering wheel were "very urgent," according to the 41-year-old Finn. Teammate Antonio Giovinazzi, by the way, holds no grudge at all. "The team told me that at that moment he changed something on the steering wheel. It's good. He said he was happy I didn't have a puncture."

Game over

Xevi Pujolar was glad the crash didn't cost the team both cars: "We had an emergency, he had to change something very quickly and unfortunately at that moment he was looking down and didn't realise he was so close to Antonio. We checked everything immediately on both cars, of course. With Kimi, we knew immediately that it was game over. Antonio, however, had no problem."