07/06/2013
NEWS STORY
Kimi Raikkonen is still more than a little peeved at the antics of Sergio Perez in Monaco, the Lotus driver regarding his McLaren rival as a driver not to be trusted.
Perez' aggression on the twisty streets of Monaco caught a couple of drivers off guard, including teammate Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso, who was forced into handing over track position to the Mexican after being obliged to miss the chicane.
The Iceman wasn't quite as obliging however when Perez made his customary move, the two tangling as the Lotus driver refused to yield. A puncture picked up in the incident necessitated an extra stop for Raikkonen dropping him out of the points. However, a typically determined late charge saw the Finn pick up a point for tenth, thereby continuing his run of twenty-three points finishes.
On the other hand, and no doubt much to the delight of some of his rivals, Perez was to stop in the final laps of the race with a suspension problem.
In the moments after the race, still agitated, Raikkonen suggested that the only punishment that might calm the fiery Mexican was a "punch in the face". Two weeks later the Finn has calmed down, but not a lot.
"There's nothing else I could have done but drive straight," he told reporters when asked about the incident. "I'm using my own line and could easily have made the corner. And he obviously he comes too fast and stops.
"There was no way he was going to get past me unless I moved over and I didn't really feel like I should move over when a car comes too fast," he added. "I did that already about five or six laps earlier, it was just because I saw that he came too fast and he would have hit me."
Though he remains second in the championship, the 9 points he lost that day - though he finished tenth he was fifth at the time of the incident - cost him dearly in terms of the championship fight, leaving him 21 points adrift of Sebastian Vettel.
"That hurt, the points," he admitted. "But I don't feel any different now. It doesn't change the fact that he f**ked our race up. Even if you asked one year from now, it's still the same ending. We got one point back but it doesn't change that it wasn't right."
In the official press conference, the assembled drivers were twice asked about Perez' aggression in Monaco, nobody was willing to comment.
Ironically, amongst those present was race winner Nico Rosberg whose father Keke, following the death of Gilles Villeneuve in 1982, said of the legendary driver, "he was always hard, but fair".
Elsewhere, Raikkonen was voicing similar thoughts. When asked if he would be cautious when in the vicinity of the McLaren driver in future, he replied: "Sometimes you have to with some guys because you cannot trust them. But if you take the top, maybe, five guys, you trust them and you know they're not going to turn into you and they're going to race fair.
"You can be hard but you can be fair," he continued, echoing Keke Rosberg. "It's okay to be aggressive but you have to have some idea behind the overtaking manoeuvre, really, rather than just hope he's going to move over.
"You know certain guys will race hard and fair but some guys, for sure, you don't always know what to expect. Some guys expect you're going to move over because there'll be an accident."
Meanwhile, as is so often the case, Perez continues to see it differently.
"Every manoeuvre that you try to do in Monaco to try to overtake people is on the limit," he told reporters. "I did a couple of moves on the limit which at the end of the day went badly. The result was not the one I was expecting. But, I think the manoeuvres I did, they were right. I did nothing stupid.
"At the end of the day we are humans," he added, "and you are very upset, very angry, and straight away you want to criticise somebody. I felt he ruined my race, he felt I ruined his race so it's very easy to make a comment straight away after the race. At the end of the day it happened. I'll move forward from that and I look forward to doing a great race here."
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