Kimi blames clutch for poor start

Kimi Raikkonen has attributed his disastrous start at the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday to the positioning of his clutch.

Raikkonen, who was in the front row of the grid for the first time since the 2013 Chinese Grand Prix, was last heading into Turn 1 after failing to get off the grid when the lights went out.

"It went into anti-stall when I let the first clutch go," the Finn explained. "As far I understand I did the correct thing, but we can see there's a problem with the second clutch.

"It was not in the correct place. I'm pretty sure I put it correct as always. I don't know. Whatever it was it triggered the anti-stall and after a few seconds I was in last place. I've not had anything like this before."

However, Raikkonen recovered brilliantly and went on to finish fifth. Despite this, the 2007 World Champion was left frustrated that he didn't achieve a better result.

"After that we did the best we could," he said. "I'm obviously quite disappointed. When you start in second place and end up last by the first corner it is not ideal.

"But the race was OK to finish fifth. The weekend was good apart from that issue."

The 35-year-old added that he and the team would conduct a thorough investigation to make sure that the problem doesn't reoccur.  

"Whatever the reason is we have to make sure we understand it correctly 100 per cent, and if we need to make changes we do the right things," he said.