Raikkonen bitter about missed opportunity: 'Coming back was just too much'

Collision with Mazepin

Things go wrong for Raikkonen when he dives into the pits after the opening lap. The Finn collided with Nikita Mazepin's Haas on the way out, causing irreparable damage to his suspension. The Russian could not continue the race. Raikkonen himself came onto the track in eighth place, but received a ten-second stop-and-go penalty for an unsafe release. According to Raikkonen, there was a problem with the release system of the traffic lights, causing him to drive off too early, reports the official website of Formula 1.

The experienced Raikkonen was not surprised by all the frenzy in the opening stages of the race. "It was a bit of what you would expect in these conditions, with a hectic first lap and a lot of things happening," Raikkonen said. "We were looking good until the penalty, which compromised our race quite a bit. Up until the penalty we were deep in the points, but coming back from the bottom was just too much."

Missed opportunities for Alfa Romeo

Raikkonen was not the only driver to receive a penalty, teammate Antonio Giovinazzi also had to suffer. The Italian eventually finished thirteenth and last. "It just wasn't our day," Giovinazzi regrets."It was a race in which we had the chance to put down a good result, but we didn't. It is what it is. With the penalty after the restart, our race was quite compromised."

What the possibilities would have been had he not received a penalty, Giovinazzi is afraid to say. "It's hard to say how much pace we really had, because I spent a lot of time in traffic, but in clean air we were pretty good. So it's disappointing not to finish in the points." Williams ' good result in Hungary saw Alfa Romeo drop to ninth in the championship.