Official: Kimi Räikkönen returns to Ferrari
The announcement made by Felipe Massa last night about his departure from Ferrari was the last step before the official announcement of his replacement. It is now official: Kimi Räikkönen is once again a Ferrari driver for two years, four seasons after leaving the team.
For months, paddock rumors had him heading to Red Bull. Ultimately, the Austrian team decided not to take the risk of pairing him with Sebastian Vettel and preferred Daniel Ricciardo. Lotus then relished this first victory by posting on social media a photo with the logos of Red Bull, Lotus, and Ferrari, on which the Red Bull logo is crossed out with a red X along with the comment “#OneDown”. Nevertheless, it failed to beat the offer from the second competitor, Ferrari.
Kimi Räikkönen returns to Maranello to form a very colorful duo with Fernando Alonso. The irony of the situation is that Luca di Montezemolo decided at the end of the 2009 season to let Kimi Räikkönen go in order to bring in the Spanish driver. It is well known that Alonso struggles with having a high-caliber teammate, as demonstrated by the explosive situation at McLaren during the 2007 season. His fratricidal battle with rookie Lewis Hamilton ended with the crowning of… Kimi Räikkönen by just one point, ahead of the two McLaren drivers. Since then, the Scuderia has not won a single title.
Ferrari has thus embraced creating strong competition between its two drivers in an effort to maximize its chances of winning the Constructors’ title. The Italian leaders especially wanted to hire two very experienced drivers to best manage the transition to the 2014 regulations, which represent a fundamental change in the architecture of the cars. They could not therefore afford to immediately take on a young driver like Jules Bianchi. The Scuderia lines up two world champion drivers for the first time since 1953, with Giuseppe Farina, crowned in 1950, and Alberto Ascari, crowned in 1952.
For Kimi Räikkönen, the question was where he had the strongest chance of winning another world championship title, his only goal in F1. Since the doors at Red Bull and Mercedes are closed, his only options were Ferrari or Lotus. It seems that he concluded that Italy held the greatest potential for success.
The question now arises as to who will replace the Finn at Lotus. The ideal candidate seems to be Nico Hülkenberg. The entire circuit knows that the German driver is capable, as he demonstrated this weekend in Monza. He only lacks a top car to climb higher in the hierarchy. However, Sauber’s financial difficulties do not allow him to benefit from cutting-edge equipment, whereas Lotus now has a significant budget linked to the departure of their number 1 driver.
The final pieces of the transfer market should soon fall into place.
With the participation of www.Racingbusiness.fr
