Kimi Raikkonen suspects his bad getaway at the Italian Grand Prix was down to an incorrect clutch position as he pulled away at the start.
After his best qualifying result of the season, Raikkonen's car went into anti-stall as he tried to pull away from second on the grid. By the time he reached the first corner he was in last place, but managed to recover to fifth by the finish.
"It went into anti-stall when I let the first clutch go and as far as I understood, I did the correct thing but obviously we can see there was a problem in the second clutch in the way that it was not in the correct place," h said. "I'm pretty sure I put everything correct as always but I don't know exactly. Whatever it was, it triggered the anti-stall and obviously after a few seconds I was in last place.
"From the data it's like it's in the incorrect place but as far as what I do always, I did the same thing, so I cannot explain why. There are only a few small chances as to why it could be but whatever the reason is, we have to make sure that we will understand it correctly 100% and make sure if we have to make changes that we do the right things."
Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene was not so sure.
"If it's a technical issue we will let you know, but at the moment it looked like he was struggling or messing a bit with the finger to follow the procedure," he said. "But to make an accusation before I have data is wrong.
"What I can say to be positive is that yesterday he made a fantastic qualifying and today into the race, starting from that position, he was doing very good overtaking and we were happy. Of course, if you are asking what the ideal situation would be it was to see Kimi go and pass for first in the first corner and to have Vettel second or third. This would be ideal, but we have to be happy because we had a driver who was second, we are still second in the constructors' championship. That's fine."
Raikkonen is hoping he and the team can learn from the poor start.
"After that we did the best that we could. I'm obviously quite disappointed, the race was OK, I finished 5th but when you start in 2nd place and you end up in last place at the first corner, so it's not ideal. It's a bit disappointing but you have to learn on those and hopefully make a better result.
"Obviously it's not ideal, we were in a good position for the start then after a few seconds we were in last. The front row didn't help us a lot but like I said, the race was OK and the weekend has been good, good apart from that issue. Obviously it's fine to get back to 5th but like I said earlier, we started from second place and have that kind of start and end up in last place. It's a bit disappointing but not the first time unfortunately that this happened after the race weekend. I'm sure we're doing the right things but we keep having issues and compromising our race big time so, we'll keep trying and I'm sure things will get better soon."