SILVERSTONE -- Kimi Raikkonen says everything felt normal on his car just before he suffered a dramatic front-left tyre delamination in the closing laps of the British Grand Prix.
Raikkonen looked set to secure second position when the incident occurred, forcing the Finn to pit for fresh rubber with four laps remaining. It relegated him from second to fourth initially, only for teammate Sebastian Vettel to suffer a similar issue with the same tyre on the penultimate lap, meaning Raikkonen inherited the final spot on the podium.
The Finn is convinced he had not hit anything before the incident.
Recalling the moment the tyre delamination occurred, he said: "Everything was going more or less smoothly and in the end the gap was fine for us but then all of a sudden two laps from the end I don't know what happened. Just before Turn 6, on the first straight, the front left tyre ... it didn't explode but the rubber part kind of came off suddenly in the middle of the straight.
"I don't think I hit anything, everything felt normal before that moment. If I came back quite fast I would destroy the front wing after that because the tyre was flapping around but we managed to get into a decent position in fourth.
"I was very unlucky but then in a way lucky... but I didn't want to see that the same happened to Seb a lap later. I think the same happened to him, but I don't know, I don't know what happened really."
Raikkonen believes Ferrari needs to analyse what it was missing at Silverstone after seeing Mercedes show a clear performance advantage throughout the weekend.
"I felt quite comfortable all the time but unfortunately it was in second and not in first place. It was not the easiest feeling that we've had all weekend, there were a few places that were quite difficult for us and the race was similar to on Friday. So I tried to hang on to Lewis and tried to keep the gap but we just didn't have enough speed today."