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F1 Bahrain GP: Poor start scuppers Raikkonen race

In a role reversal from the opening round in Australia, Ferrari's Bahrain Grand Prix was undone at the start, with Sebastian Vettel not even making it to the grid and Kimi Raikkonen struggling to get away from it.

The Finn was left as the Scuderia's only hope of preventing Mercedes from taking a second win of the season when team-mate Vettel's engine went up in smoke on the formation lap, but a poor getaway from the line - in direct contrast to the starts both Ferraris got in Melbourne, where they led into turn one - allowed Nico Rosberg to build early foundations for win number two.

Raikkonen admits that he isn't sure what happened to scupper his start, although paddock rumour suggests that there may have been a little finger trouble in the cockpit.

"I don't know exactly what happened, if I had some issue or did some mistake, but I got bad wheelspin in the end," the Finn reported, "I still managed to hold quite a good position after such a bad start, didn't lose too much, and then I managed to pass cars but, once I was in second place, I was already one full straight behind Nico so obviously there was not an awful lot I could do after that.

"We managed to catch up little by little, but I think that we did the maximum we could after that start. It's not possible to say [if I could have been closer with a better start] - this is the end result. It was not enough to win, but we'll take second place today and try to improve on that."

Raikkonen's podium was his eighth in Bahrain without a win, equalling the F1 record, but he refused to dwell on that with Ferrari already falling well behind in the constructors' standings after two DNFs in as many races.

"I don't think there is anything special that we do [in Bahrain]," he insisted, "There's no point wondering [about it] - we've had some second places, some third places, no win but, today, I take second place and go from here and see what happens.

"I don't know what happened to the other car but, obviously something went wrong. I had an issue in the last race, Seb had something here, so it's not ideal but, like I said, we have some work to be done. You never want to have a retirement as it's going to cost points in the drivers' and teams' [championships], but its an unfortunate part of the game." 

Zdroj: crash.net