Arrivabene points finger at Raikkonen for bad start

Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene has speculated that Kimi Raikkonen was probably to blame for his failure to get away from the grid at the start of the Italian Grand Prix.

Raikkonen had put his Ferrari on the front row, after edging out team-mate Sebastian Vettel in qualifying to line-up second. However, a disastrous start saw him drop right to the back and while he did recover and finish fifth, it was very much a missed opportunity.

Quizzed on what happened after the race, Arrivabene said they have still to analyse it precisely, but he speculated that "finger" trouble was the issue.

"If it's a technical issue we will let you know, but at the moment it looked like he was struggling, or messing a bit, with his finger to follow the procedure. But to make an accusation before I have data is wrong," he told reporters at Monza.

"What I can say to be positive is that on Saturday he made a fantastic qualifying and on Sunday into the race, starting from that position, he was doing very good overtaking and we were happy.

"Of course, if you are asking what the ideal situation would be it was to see Kimi go and pass for first in the first corner and to have Vettel second or third.

"This would be ideal, but we have to be happy because we had a driver who was second, we are still second in the constructors' championship.

"That's fine."

Meanwhile, Raikkonen himself insisted that he "did the same thing as always" and was at a loss to explain what went wrong.