Raikkonen followed team-mate Sebastian Vettel in pitting during the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) period and going for a two-stop strategy, with Vettel leading at the time but going on to finish second behind Lewis Hamilton.

Raikkonen entered the pits just as the VSC came to an end and rejoined in traffic, and the Finn revealed Ferrari tried to react at the last minute.

“We decided to stop but in the last second they tried to call me to stay out because the Virtual Safety Car was ending, but I was already braking into the pit lane and it was too late,” Raikkonen said. “Would it have made a lot of difference? I don’t know, you can always speculate.

“It hasn’t been an easy weekend and we tried to get the maximum after the stop. We managed to overtake people, but obviously the end result was not exactly what we wanted, but this is what we got.”

And Raikkonen says he was struggling to get heat in his tyres which was hurting his pace as he eventually came home sixth.

“Of course not [happy], but this is what we’ve got. When I had to slow down to save fuel the tyres would cool down and then I struggled to make them work. I lost most of the race on that, trying to get the tyres to work.

“The last sector was the biggest issue because the tyres would lose temperature in the long straight and then I would struggle for a few corners, before the tyres would work well again. Every lap was the same story.”

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