Kimi Raikkonen has admitted that he drove through the pain barrier at Monza on Sunday, both mentally and physically.
The most obvious discomfort came from the after-effects of the Finn's sizeable shunt in Saturday practice which, despite going along with
Ferrari's claim of driver error immediately after the incident, he admits remains a mystery.
"I still don't know what exactly happened," he revealed, "I arrived at the Ascari and braked but, when I was just below 300km/h, the wheels blocked right on a kerb and the back of the car suddenly lost all its downforce. It had a very hard swerve and I ended up against the wall to my right. There was absolutely nothing I could have done but waiting for the impact to happen.
"The telemetry didn't give any hint on an error or damage, just like the analysis of the car in Maranello, as the technicians told me. The impact was very hard, but the consequences, as often happens in these kind of accidents, I could only feel the next day - unfortunately, it was the day of the race.
"My neck really hurt - we did everything we could to put me back in shape, but there was not enough time left. This was undeniably the most painful race I've ever had. It's really difficult to drive when you can't hold your head up and, when I was braking, I had trouble to see the corners correctly. After a couple of days, everything would have been fine."
With
McLaren taking a 1-2 finish ahead of the lone remaining Ferrari in the race, Raikkonen acknowledges that the accident had a major impact on his chances of remaining firmly in the title fight, but also pointed to the Woking team's record at Monza.
"We knew that it was going be a hard race, because McLaren has always been very strong there," he commented, "Last year, with a not really perfect car, I could manage to get the pole. During the tests over the last week, we could see that our competitors would have been really strong, and we were not quick enough to win at the weekend.
