Kimi Räikkönen has an option with Ferrari for 2016

At Silverstone last year, Kimi Räikkönen announced that he was considering retiring at the end of his current contract, which is at the end of the current season.

During the Bahrain Grand Prix, in a Friday press conference, Maurizio Arrivabene stated that to exercise the option on Kimi Räikkönen for the next season, the Finn needed to step up his game on track: “It’s a bit early to talk about it. You want to know what I said to Kimi? He talked to me about the contract and I replied: ‘It depends on your performance.’ Kimi is the kind of person who likes being spoken to transparently and directly. Kimi knows it’s too early to talk about that now. I’m happy with Kimi’s performances but he needs to push and he knows it.”

It seems that the message got through as early as Sunday, with an all-out racing from start to finish, managing to claw back over 16 seconds in about ten laps on Nico Rosberg and overtaking him with two laps to go. Thus, the Finn returned to the podium for the first time since South Korea in 2013.

This could only please his boss, but he also does not want to rush « I can officially say he is back. He has shown that he is a racing beast. Kimi is better when he is in danger.»

The Italian manager therefore wishes to put pressure on his driver to continue achieving great performances in the upcoming races in order to strengthen the team’s chances in the Constructors’ Championship: « I am happy with the drivers we have. That doesn’t mean I’m going to sign with Kimi tomorrow. I told Kimi that it depended on his performances, and he has shown that he is a great driver. If you ask me if he deserves to renew his option now, I want to say yes. But if I say yes, I don’t want the driver to fall asleep. It’s a psychological approach. The paper is blank at the moment. Sometimes, you have to take out your pen and then Kimi steps onto the podium… »

Maurizio Arrivabene wants to both push his own driver and keep options open for the future. Lewis Hamilton has not yet finalized his own extension with Mercedes, but it’s hard to see how he could voluntarily leave a team where he outrageously dominates the competition. Similarly, the team has signed Esteban Gutierrez and Jean-Eric Vergne as reserve drivers, and drivers like Valterri Bottas or Nico Hülkenberg could be strong recruits.

The situation of the new strongman of the Scuderia is therefore ideal. Especially if the results continue to follow in the coming weeks…

With the participation of www.Racingbusiness.fr