F1 News: Lewis Hamilton Admits It Was 'Dumb' To Accuse Kimi Raikkonen

Lewis Hamilton admits it was “dumb” to imply that Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen had crashed into him deliberately at the start of the race after the British Grand Prix on Sunday where he finished second behind F1 Drivers’ championship rival Sebastian Vettel.

The British driver was desperate to win in front of his home crowd at Silverstone and had put himself in the best place to do that after qualifying on pole position ahead of the two Ferrari’s.

The Italian outfit, however, are known for their fast starts and having brought a significant upgrade to Silverstone, they were contenders for the win since the first practice on Friday. And it proved right as Vettel overtook Hamilton off the line and went on to record his fourth win of the season and take an eight point lead in the title race.

But the main talking point of the race occurred on Turn 3 of the opening lap when Raikkonen keen to take advantage of Hamilton’s poor start locked his front right and slid into the Mercedes driver making him spin. The latter dropped to last place, while the Finn continued in fifth place – but was handed a 10-second time penalty.

The four-time world champion drove a brilliant race after being last on the opening lap to finish second behind the German to limit the damage in the championship race, but let his emotions get the better of him when he accused Ferrari of “interesting tactics” during his post-race interview on the podium.

“Well, the team did an amazing job this weekend and we’ve got so much support but so much pressure for us all. Interesting tactics, I would say, from their side but we will do what we can to fight them and improve in the next races, but I’m just so grateful for all the support we had here,” Hamilton said immediately after the race on Sunday.

The 32-year-old again brought it up during the post-race press conference and referenced Vettel’s opening lap incident with his teammate Valtteri Bottas at the French Grand Prix. The Ferrari driver’s labeled it silly for Hamilton to blame them as they were purely racing incidents and the Briton has been criticized for his comments.

Hamilton has since retracted his statement and admitted that it was "dumb" of him to accuse Raikkonen and Ferrari. He revealed that the Finn had apologized and he had moved on from the incident.

Raikkonen’s wife Minttu, however, seemed incensed that her husband was being accused when it was clearly a racing incident and took to social media to make her feelings clear about the incident.

“If you cry like a girl when you lose, do ballet,” she wrote on Instagram in the aftermath of the incident. She removed the post but later clarified to a fan who was defending Hamilton that she was criticizing the team rather than the driver as Mercedes also accused Ferrari of underhand tactics before accepting it was a racing incident, which it was.

"Just to be clear, I was not talking about the driver but the team who was crying afterwards that someone did something on purpose,” Raikkonen’s wife added. "No he didn't. It's called racing."