Kimi Räikkönen, still in love with Formula 1
Hired for the second time by Ferrari last year, Finnish driver Kimi Räikkönen says he wants to continue the adventure with Scuderia. Although his contract has not yet been renewed, his passion for F1 remains intact.
Dominated overwhelmingly by Fernando Alonso throughout 2014, the Finn now seems to be equally overshadowed by his new teammate, Sebastian Vettel. Indeed, his lone podium finish in Bahrain pales in comparison to the victory and five podiums for the German driver. Before the British Grand Prix, Vettel is ahead of Räikkönen by 48 points. It’s this initial accounting that makes the 2007 world champion vulnerable within the Scuderia.
Räikkönen has a two-year contract with an option for the 2016 season based, evidently, on performance and results delivered. It can be recalled that after his podium finish, the head of the Scuderia, Maurizio Arrivabene, expressed a desire to discuss a possible contract renewal because, according to him, it would be a new source of motivation for driver number 7. “Kimi gives his best when he is a bit in difficulty,” he assured our colleagues at Sky.
After the very disappointing weekend in Austria for the Finn, he acknowledges that he is currently going through a rough patch but nevertheless reaffirms his love for motorsport and particularly for F1: “I wouldn’t be in F1 if I didn’t love it. But it’s not fun to have these kinds of weekends. It’s not the first time, but with a little optimism, it will be the last. Sometimes things just don’t go your way.”
Always phlegmatic, Räikkönen doesn’t seem worried, neither for himself nor for Ferrari: “I don’t need to be here, I can go wherever I want, the aim is to do well. I want to do well, the teams want to do well and I am certain that the team will be one of the teams to beat in the future. I am certain that next year will be a completely different story.”
On the Red Bull Ring, his accident with Alonso due to still cold tires gave him a scare. “Obviously, you’re afraid of many things in life. But I don’t think about that, and when something goes wrong, it happens very quickly, you can only hope that everything ends well. Either you land somewhere, or you crash,” he confided.
He finally reflected on his (short) career in WRC and couldn’t help but compare this discipline to F1: “I think rallying is more dangerous because if you go off the track, you end up in a ditch or you hit a tree.”
Kimi wants to stay in F1, particularly with Ferrari. But Vettel’s support may not be enough. Nor Arrivabene’s, for that matter. Especially since the latter recently said that Williams driver Valtteri Bottas is not just anyone…
