Raikkonen was ready to pit on last lap
By Jonathan Noble and Pablo Elizalde Thursday, September 11th 2008, 16:28 GMT
World champion Kimi Raikkonen says he was ready to pit for wet weather tyres before crashing out of the Belgian Grand Prix last Sunday.
The Ferrari driver led for most of the race before a downpour with three laps left helped Lewis Hamilton caught up with him and pass him.
The track was so wet that some drivers decided to pit on the last lap in order to put on wet weather rubber. BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld pitted with two laps left, a decision that got him onto the podium.
Raikkonen, who was running second when he crashed, said he was ready to pit and reckons he could have won the race if he had not crashed.
"I would have come in, but I never made the last 100 metres," Raikkonen told reporters at Monza. "I was coming in to change the tyres and probably it could have worked out very well but I never got there."
The Finn, who was embroiled in a thrilling battle with Lewis Hamilton, said he did not want to get involved in the controversy surrounding the penalty given to the Briton after the race.
"I think there has been a lot of talk... but I don't really want to get involved in the whole thing," Raikkonen said.
"I was a part of the thing here, but everyone knows the rules, there is always action taken if you do something wrong and this time that was the decision they made in the end.
"Sometimes it is hard to say if it is right or wrong but I don't want to get involved in the whole thing. Definitely everybody has two different views of the whole thing, some like it, some don't. That is life."
He added: "There are some rules, the FIA knows about it, but I am not the guy who makes the decisions. That is for the guys who made the decision. I didn't get any advantage but that was my fault in the end. I wanted to win, it didn't help me, but that is racing and that is rules."
Raikkonen seemed to be much slower than Hamilton when the track was wet during the Spa race, and the pair made contact a couple of times during their fight.
Their difference in speed nearly caused a crash between them, something that led Hamilton to say on Thursday that Raikkonen was driving too slowly.
"That is how he drives," he said. "If you don't have the balls to brake late then that is your problem! At the end of the day, in those situations it is the driver who can feel the grip more and put the car more on the edge. And I know I am great in those conditions.
"I felt the grip more than him, I knew where to place my car and I did place it in different positions to him and I found the grip."
Raikkonen, however, was unfazed by Hamilton's comments.
"I don't mind that. Like I said he has his own opinion on anything, but that is not what happened at the first corner. It is more about what happens when you cut a chicane and get an advantage or not.
"If you put the concrete wall there you could never come there in the first place, it is more about that than what happened at the first corner."
The world champion also made it clear he intends to keep fighting for the title, and suggested he won't play a supporting role to teammate Felipe Massa until he has no mathematical chance.
"I know what the team expects from us and like I said as long as I have any chance and are in the points I will keep trying, and if it happens and I don't have any chance then it is a different story.
"I don't see it is up to me - we race as hard as we can both of us and we see what happens at the end of the season."
) But if you got caught once and you where getting a 10 place penalty in the next race anyway, what incentive is there not to cut more corners?
