Merc played safe with Kimi

The decision meant that the 2003 championship runner-up started from the back of the grid for the second time in two races. Raikkonen also suffered an engine failiure in Melbourne as well as two in Bahrain.

Speaking about the Finn's Imola problems, Haug said: "We found the same problem once in the last period of testing in Paul Ricard and Barcelona. It was a leakage in the seat-ring of an exhaust valve. We discussed it and we definitely wanted to go the safe way and take no risk at all.

"We cannot say for certain, but there was a likelihood that the engine would not finish the race. In our current situation, we felt we should go for the safest option. We are in trouble there, but we need to sort it out and we will work together in a very concentrated way. We have a couple of difficult races ahead of us."

Despite starting from the back of the grid, Raikkonen came through to finish eighth to score his first point of the season. Ironically, this was at the expense of BAR's Takuma Sato, whose Honda engine blew up near the finish.