Raikkonen escapes punishment after crash

AFP: Kimi Raikkonen escaped punishment on Sunday after being accused of unsafe driving of his damaged Ferrari during the Monaco Grand Prix.

The Finn, who crashed at the Mirabeau corner, refused to park his car and instead drove it downhill and through the tunnel before abandoning it, with a broken front wing trailing, at the chicane.

His driving led Frenchman Romain Grosjean of Haas to make heated criticism on team radio and the debris from his car was littered on the circuit.

Raikkonen told the stewards that he believed he could drive back safely to the Ferrari garage for a new nose section for his car.

“Radio messages confirm this,” said a statement from the sport’s ruling body, the International Motoring Federation (FIA). “The team advised the driver that he needed to stop the car as soon as possible.

“The driver stated that he wanted to stop the car in a safe place and the first available place was the run-off area at Turn 10.”

In other post-race decisions, the stewards gave Sauber’s Swedish driver Marcus Ericsson a three-place grid penalty for the Canadian Grand Prix for his crash with team-mate Brazilian Felipe Nasr.

He also received two penalty points, taking his total to six.