Ferrari have announced Kimi Raikkonen will not take part in the two-day in-season test due to start tomorrow at Silverstone following his horrific accident in the British Grand Prix.
Raikkonen sustained only bruising to his left ankle and knee despite suffering a 150mph, 47g impact into a metal guardrail down Wellington Straight on the opening lap.
The Finn ran wide heading into turn five, Aintree, and as he returned to the track with the power still down his car his caught the lip of the circuit, sending him out of control.
After impacting into the barrier, Raikkonen bounced off and back onto the circuit where he was also hit by Williams’ Felipe Massa.
Raikkonen had to be helped from his car and limped away with the aid of a marshal.
After careful consideration it has been decided Raikkonen will be rested this week to ensure he is fully fit for the next grand prix at Hockenheim in Germany from July 18-20.
Test driver Pedro de la Rosa will drive on Tuesday, with Raikkonen now replaced on Wednesday by Jules Bianchi.
The Frenchman, currently with Marussia, has been a member of the Maranello marque’s driver academy programme for the last four years.
Meanwhile, Mercedes F1 team boss Niki Lauda yesterday slammed Formula One for being ‘over regulated’ and said Raikkonen was partly to blame for his own big first lap accident in Sunday’s race.
The three-time world champion Austrian said he could not understand Raikkonen’s driving in the accident that delayed the grand prix for an hour.
And he suggested that the delay, to repair a piece of crash barrier, was too long and unnecessary – and may have cost the sport large numbers of television viewers on a day when it was competing with the Tour de France and the men’s tennis single final at Wimbledon.
“This over nursing of F1, being over cautious, over-controlling and over regulating drives me mad. And this little guardrail issue is another example,” he said.
“There are too many people involved in making F1 as safe as the roads, which is wrong. They should have fixed it quickly, do something instantly and then 10-15 minutes later the race would have gone on.
“There is no way that another car would hit in the same place that guardrail. The delays we have now, nursing the guys, not crossing the white line here, being four seconds back, it is all wrong and this should be stopped.
“I have talked to Bernie [Ecclestone] about it and he fully agrees. We have to go back to normal racing.”
