Kimi Raikkonen gave every impression he believed he had been sacrificed by his team to boost Sebastian Vettel’s world championship chances after Ferrari’s strategy worked in the German’s favour at the Monaco Grand Prix. Hamilton believed it was clear the Scuderia had chosen their No1 driver but Vettel and his team countered by saying it had been accident rather than design. Raikkonen had been losing pace towards the end of his stint on the ultrasoft rubber and the decision to pit him to cover Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen was expected. What was not was the sudden performance improvement Vettel then found, having stayed out on the same rubber. He had been struggling with the grip on his rears, as had Raikkonen, but having stayed out found it came back to him. “There seemed to be a second tyre somehow,” Vettel said. “You can say it worked out well to stay out longer but if you were looking at it before the race you couldn’t predict it.” Daniel Ricciardo benefited from the same extra life in his rubber to take third. Equally, Ferrari dismissed suggestions they had purposely fed Raikkonen back into traffic, with a team spokesman saying: “It’s totally unfair and crazy and stupid to slow him down deliberately because you risk losing the one-two.” Raikkonen is aggrieved but the jury is still out on whether it was plain bad luck rather than a conspiracy.
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