McLaren Set-Up Caused Tyre Problems

Kimi Raikkonen had to have his left-rear tyre changed after his first pitstop when he was slowed with a tyre delamination, while teammate Juan Pablo Montoya was hit with a similar problem late in the race but managed to keep going to take the win.

With the team being the only outfit to have suffered from the problem, Dennis readily accepts that the delaminations were most likely the result of set-up issues.

"We had the cars a little bit out of balance," said Dennis. "It was an acute problem, but it was enough to overload the tyres."

Dennis believes that Raikkonen probably came off worst out of his two drivers because he was running with a heavier fuel load - which would have put more stresses through the rubber.

"Kimi was on the radio saying he had a vibration and we could see the tyre was delaminating," added Dennis. "We knew that out of the race we stood no chance of winning the championship.

"We quickly calculated he could have come fourth instead of second, where he could have got without that problem. It was a good strategy from the team, to send him out for just one stop, but we overloaded the tyres a bit."