Kimi Raikkonen says his angry radio outburst during the U.S. Grand Prix was aimed at the race stewards rather than Toro Rosso's Max Verstappen.
Raikkonen was in a wheel-to-wheel battle with Verstappen when the pair made contact while the Toro Rosso driver tried to pass the Finn around the outside of Turn 12. A radio message from Raikkonen was later broadcast saying: "That guy keeps pushing me off the circuit every time, if that's legal I will do the same next time."
However, Raikkonen says he was seeking clarification on the rules from the stewards.
"With Verstapen what I wanted to know was if it's okay, when you're next another car, you're allowed to push the other car over the kerb," the Finn said. "Obviously he's trying to defend when I'm trying to pass on the outside. It was fine, apparently it's okay, so it was fine.
"As long as everybody has the same rules it doesn't matter. You have so many rules these days in Formula One, you have rules saying you shouldn't change line under braking, you should leave the other car enough room, one car space, but you're not leaving space if you're pushing the other guy wide.
"I don't complain, it's fine, but it's not fine if the next time I do it to someone else, to get penalised -- that's the issue. You can do a lot of things, depending on the person, and then someone else does the same and gets penalised -- that's not fine. I don't complain about what he did today but it should be more clear, so we know what we can do and what we can't do."
Just after his first pit stop Raikkonen spun off the track and across the gravel, initially getting stuck against the wall before managing to get the car going again, albeit with damage requiring another stop. He eventually had to retire due to overheating brakes caused by that crashed and accepted blame for the incident.
"It was fine when I came out of the pits but I didn't see a little patch of water on that corner, it was a bit slippery, the car got loose on the rear and there wasn't a big enough run off area. I tried to turn and thought it would be okay if I hit the wall sideways, as I wasn't going fast. But I got stuck on the advertising board, the front got stuck, so I had to work with the steering wheel to get unstuck.
"Unfortunately when I came in we had a flat front tyre and maybe a flat rear tyre, so a brake duct got a bit damaged, the right front brake one, so they had to pull it out. Then, obviously, the front brake overheated when I went out, I was going to run out of brakes, so the team called me in.
"It was my mistake and that's unfortunate, because we had very good speed, the car was feeling great, working pretty well in these conditions. Even after the car was damaged it felt pretty good in the dry... It's not ideal but I think we have been happier with the car in these conditions, so hopefully in the next race there won't be any mistakes and we'll get the result."