Ferrari says Mexico disaster "a good lesson"

Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen both crashed out of the race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, delivering Ferrari its first double non-finish since the 2006 Australian Grand Prix.

Arrivabene said the weekend had been tough to deal with – but after some highs earlier in the season it was inevitable that at some point there would be some lows.

“During the course of this season, we touched the sky. Today, we touched the bottom,” said Arrivabene.

“This is a good lesson for all of us, preparing ourselves and the character of the team for next year.

“I don’t want to blame Kimi one way, I don’t want to blame Seb in the other way. I mean, we don’t have to make an excuse, and they don’t have to make an excuse – we are a team.”

Asked specifically about the Raikkonen clash with Bottas, Arrivabene said: “There are racing accidents. I mean in Russia it happened, it happened here, this is Formula 1.

“The most important thing is that nobody was injured, this is the most important thing for safety. I don’t want to blame anybody.”

Pace not a problem

Despite the lack of a good result, Arrivabene said that there had been some encouraging signs – especially because the pace in the race had been a match for Mercedes at times.

“The race pace was very, very good today,” he said. “I was watching the timing, and the pace was very good.

“We were concerned about the weather, because if it was raining for us it was potentially a problem. But I was happy with the pace.”