After a three-car La Source incident at the start compromised Raikkonen's, Verstappen's and Sebastian Vettel's runs in the Belgian GP, the Finn was left fuming at Verstappen's aggressive blocking moves later on in the race.

Responding to criticism from both Raikkonen and Vettel, Verstappen had then said the duo should be "ashamed" and added: "If they screw up my race, I'm not going to make it easy for them. "I think they should understand that. I'm not going to say: 'come on through'."

And it is those comments that appear to have rattled Raikkonen the most, the Finn saying in the pre-Italian GP press conference that Formula 1 was not the "correct sport" for such an approach.

"Personally I have nothing against Max, he is doing a good job, he is fast. But there are certain things in my feeling that are not correct if you have to slow down or brake at full speed, but obviously those things are never-ending discussions," Raikkonen said.

"Everybody is allowed to say what they feel like," the Finn added in response to Verstappen. "Like I said before, I have nothing personal against him but certain things are not correct.

"I have not much interest to go much into it. If somebody says that during the race he does something because of what happened at first corner, that it is payback, I don't think it is the correct sport to be purposefully paying back.

"It can end up in a very bad way. Yes, people make mistakes, everybody has made it and it will happen to all of us.

"You just have to accept it. But [this is] not the place to start acting silly in a way and paying back something."