Lotus' Kimi Raikkonen blasted McLaren’s Sergio Perez, claiming he should be ‘punched in the face’ for a series of gaffes at the Monaco Grand Prix.
The Finn accused Perez of ‘driving like an idiot’ after a collision heading into the chicane while Raikkonen was defending fifth place.
The McLaren new boy made a series of aggressive overtaking moves in the Principality, and asked if the other drivers would talk to Perez, Lotus driver Raikkonen said: ‘That won’t help. Maybe someone should punch him in the face.’ As reported by
BBC Sport
The Mexican’s attempt to pass saw Raikkonen suffer a rear-tyre puncture that dropped him right down the field.
‘Actually idiot is a nice word compared with what he really said,’ said Lotus team boss Eric Boullier when asked about Raikkonen’s radio outburst.
The 2007 world champion, who had started the day four points behind Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and ended it 21 adrift but still second overall, pitted for supersoft tyres and passed six cars in the final five laps to finish tenth.
That was his 23rd successive race in the points, one short of Michael Schumacher’s all-time record.
‘He hit me from behind and that’s about all there is to it. If he thinks it’s my fault that he came into the corner too fast then he obviously has no idea what he’s talking about. It’s not the first time he’s hit someone in the race. He seems to expect people to be always looking at what he might do, then move over or go straight on if he comes into the corner too quick and isn’t going to make it without running into someone. Because of one stupid move from Sergio we’ve lost a lot of points to Sebastian in the championship and you can’t afford to lose ground like that.’ added Raikkonen.
Perez retired after the incident, having also come close to collisions with his own team mate Jenson Button and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
But he was in no mood to accept responsibility for colliding with Raikkonen’s car.
‘I overtook Fernando and Jenson in the same place, so at the end of the day you have to give some space. If you look at the accident I hit the wall on entry of the corner, so Kimi gave me no room at all and there was nothing I could do to avoid it. If someone could have avoided the accident then it was Kimi and not myself.’
