Kimi Raikkonen qualified in a superb fourth place, starting the Spanish Grand Prix behind his teammate, Sebastian Vettel, on the grid and alongside Valtteri Bottas, who was starting from P3.
Unfortunately, his hopes for a podium finish were dashed before the first lap really got started when he was squeezed by Bottas on the right and made contact with the Red Bull of Max Verstappen on the left.
The incident caused both Kimi and Max to retire from the race and there was no way the Finn could have avoided the end result…
“I made a good start, but on the main straight I got blocked once by Bottas,” he explained. “I chose to lift and go a little bit on the left to leave him space, but, I don't know how, he hit me on the right rear corner , my car jumped and I end up going into Verstappen.”
“There was nothing me or Max could have done, when you get hit from behind in that way there's no way to avoid the collision. I'm pretty sure Valtteri had enough space. Unfortunately my race ended there. Obviously it's very disappointing, we had been running quite well all weekend and I was happy with the behaviour of the car.”
Kimi was not the only one upset by his quick and unexpected retirement with the cameras catching a very young fan very distressed by the accident, tears streaming down his little face and almost bringing the commentators to tears. Later in the race, the young fan and his family were seen sitting with the Ferrari driver in the team's garage and it was smiles all around and cap on the youngsters head for good measure!
https://youtu.be/wG4u6iCLIVU
