The stewards deemed Raikkonen "made no attempt to significantly reduce his speed" when he passed Max Verstappen's stricken Red Bull on the Kemmel Straight.

Raikkonen said he didn't lift but he didn't think it was necessary as the car was behind the barrier.

"I knew there was a yellow flag but the car was at least halfway behind the barrier on the straight," he said.

"I didn't go faster but I didn't lift on the straight. In my view it was pointless to get penalised for that.

"I completely understand if he was by the side of the circuit, on the proper side and there is people working on it. But this is what happened and I would be surprised if everybody else lifted…

"Luckily there was a safety car and we could recover something, but it was not the easiest end of the weekend but it's what happened."

Raikkonen dropped from fourth to seventh after taking the penalty but was able to easily pass Esteban Ocon and then Nico Hulkenberg.

He then went three-wide on the Kemmel Straight with Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas after the safety car restart, with Ricciardo and Raikkonen passing Bottas for third and fourth respectively.

"On the restart I got a really good tow from two cars and then Ricciardo was on one side, Bottas was in the middle and I just had just enough speed to get next to Bottas, I managed to go on the inside," he said.

"I got one car. After that I never really had the speed advantage over the Red Bull. They were surprisingly strong in race conditions compared to what they have been the whole weekend.

"They had good speed in the right places always and good laptimes but at least I got one place back."