Kimi🍃 Raikkonen was at a loss to explain why his hopes of a points’ finish in the opening round of the 2020 F1 World Championship wentꦫ awry after suffering a bizarre incident that result in his right-front wheel coming off entirely.

On a trying weekend for the Alfa Romeo team, Raikkonen was out-qualified by less experienced team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi, but was running ahead of him at the time of the retirement🎃☂ on lap 55 of 71.

By that stage both Alfa Romeos were running inside the points, albeit mostly as a result of a high attrition rate than 🎀outright speed, before the Alfa Romeo expired 𒅌by pinging its wheel from its tethers to embark on a high-speed excursion before collecting the barrier and coming to a halt.

“Obviousl,y it was a bit surprising, because we’d been some three laps behind the Safety Car, it was all normal and, suddenly, on the re-start the wheel came off. It was no🍨t ideal, of course, and I was pretty surprised.

“[The wheel] was OK fo⭕r two laps or more, when we were behind the Safety Car but as we started to speed up, on the second from last corner I first thought I had got too close to the car in front and was losing downforce but then, suddenly, the wheel came off. I have no idea why that happened, and why it took that lon💝g to come off.

Reflecting on the weekend as a whole, Raikkonen feels Alfa Romeo were m🃏ore competitive in race trim than over a single lap, but otherwise has wo🦩rk to do, much like its parent company Ferrari.

“I think we were 𝓀a bit more competitive in the race than Saturday but, as I said, we were a bit unlucky with the Safety Car after our first stop but, in the end, we were still in a good position to score points, with the new tyres, but on the res-start we lost the wheel and that was it. I was not expecting it and it wasn’t the first weekend we wanted.