Kimi Raikkonen has congratulated fellow Finn Valtteri Bottas on winning the first race of his career at the Russian Grand Prix and played down suggestions there is a rift between the two.
Bottas beat the two Ferraris to victory in Sochi after holding off Raikkonen's teammate Sebastian Vettel in the closing stages of the race. It was the first victory for a Finnish driver in Formula One since Raikkonen won the 2013 Australian Grand Prix and means Bottas is the fifth Finn to win a race in the sport's history.
After they clashed twice on track in 2015 -- once in Russia and once in Mexico -- a perception grew in the paddock that Raikkonen and Bottas do not see eye to eye, but Raikkonen insists that is not the case.
"I'm happy for Valtteri" he said. "People always think that we have something against each other because we have come close to each other and crashed into each other a few times but no, I'm very happy for him to win.
"It doesn't mean that I'm not happy if Seb wins. It's good for him and things will turn out to be for sure good for him. It's going to be close between both of the Ferraris and both of the Mercedes drivers this year, so it will be exciting -- but unfortunately a lot of times it will depend on what happens on the first lap. That's how it's going to play out. Hopefully it goes better. I'm more happy this weekend but obviously not happy to be third, but this is how it goes sometimes."
Raikkonen dropped from second to third at the start and said there was no way back after that.
"I had a pretty poor start, comparing even to Seb. Got wheelspin straight away and then I really thought I was going to lose a lot more but then luckily, both of these cars went side-by-side and I started to get the tow and I managed to stay ahead of Lewis in the end.
"But, I don't know what happened. It was slippery and lost a lot, so not ideal. If you look last year it's all about starts, and if you lose a place in those, it's going to be a boring race. Not a lot happened after that. Mercedes, Valtteri was a bit too fast but then we were kind of holding our positions but nothing really happened the whole race, so, yeah, all about the start."