Will 2015 be Raikkonen's last season in F1?
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Does it seem this is it for Kimi’s career? His 2014 was disastrous (best results of 4th and 6th making him the least successful full-time Ferrari driver since Ivan Capelli in 1992), and even he said he wasn’t looking for a contract extension.
People seemed to give him the benefit of the doubt, but is Ferrari now able to take a risk on a young charger now they have Vettel in the other car?
Is he still a hot property, considering his inability to manage a difficult car (like the 2014 Ferrari) and his reluctance to ‘play the game’ when it comes to charming the sponsors?
It really depends on his enthusiasm for the sport and results this season. If he has a rejuvenating season and is close to or indeed actually beating Vettel then he may have a future in Formula 1. But if he is lacklustre again and is well behind Vettel, then he will lose interest and quit. If he is really poor at the beginning of this season, I wouldn’t be surprised if he jacked it in mid-season.
I think Kimi will be in for one more season. Kimi is an experienced driver who knows how to build a car. Well, things might have been bad recently but I hope it will be a pretty good season for Kimi, scoring good points consistently. Ferrari needs at least 2 more years to catch up with Merc (not considering 2017 rule change). Then Kimi may retire himself before Ferrari replaces him with a talented hot shot (for which I’m considering Romain Grosjean who will be a good No.2 to Seb).
@iceman241086 I wonder though, does Kimi know how to build a good F1 car? His input into the 2014 car clearly didn’t help – and he missed the last 2 races of 2013 with Lotus to supposedly help in his preparations for 2014.
The rumours suggest Ferrari have been looking at Bottas as a potential replacement.
@junior-pilot Well, I don’t think Kimi had that much of an input to the F14T. I think Ferrari introduced most of his suggestions on SF15T. James Allison clearly mentioned Kimi’s feedback could not be exploited as the F14T chassis could not be compromised. Kimi was one of the front runners in 2013 as well, till their relationship started going south (Indian Grand Prix, between Alan Permane and Kimi). The entire team was splitting up – Kimi, James Allison and Eric Boullier. There must have been several reasons. He’ll quit (sad day it will be) but I think he will be there till 2016 season.
As for Bottas, Merc have their sights set on him for sure. Even McLaren, because Button may also quit by 2016. Ferrari will look for a No.2 driver for sure as it always been. Till the next year or so, it will be all Team building and stuff.
@iceman241086 Keving Magnussen would be…..forgotten?
@davidnotcoulthard McLaren would definitely vouch for Bottas instead of Magnussen. :) I mean who would have thought Honda coming back to McLaren, and Alonso of all drivers.
What do you guys think? Is Kimi not worth it for 2016 season? I am really hoping this would be big for Kimi.
I’m excited to see how Kimi rates vs Vettel. I’ve been a Kimi fan for well, ever. I hope he clobbers Seb. He could do it too, but I think it depends on how his season starts. If the car is there and doesn’t let him down and can sniff the podium regularly, then I think Kimi will be the guy to take it there.
In my view it all depends on how competitive the 2015 Ferrari is as it seems to me he finds it a lot easier to motivate himself and those around him if he has a realistic chance of podiums/ wins. Look at the 2008 season he finished 3rd in the championship winning 2 races and scoring 7 other podiums, but just a year later he won 1 race and scored 3 other podiums some of the difference can be explained by an uncompetitive car design, but in other races he just seemed to switch off and wouldn’t/ couldn’t drive around the problems in the same way that Hamilton/ Alonso can
I think it will largely depend on his 2015 season. If it goes badly and he wants to retire I honestly won’t be surprised if his replacement is a certain Fernando Alonso.
To be honest I really don’t get all the recent ‘is this driver good at developing cars’ talk, when over 2010 through 2013 there was a lot of talk drivers were less influential, with the limitations of on-track testing and race drivers not always being good simulator drivers.
Kimi I think wants to continue beyond 2015, if he feels like it. It might not even be up to him, considering how straight forward Ferrari has been slashing staff lately, but it could well be up to ‘feeling good’ more so than results. Kimi, to me, seems like a driver that’s actually pretty sensitive to his surroundings, hence his dip in performance at Lotus in 2013 when they were looking a little less certain in terms of funding (and not paying his salary). His time at Ferrari in 2009 was pretty much doomed, as Ferrari had been angling Alonso since 2005 or so and he was frustrated he couldn’t explore other series. I doubt we are going to see a similar scenario to 2009 either way.
While I’m not a McLaren fan, I would count myself as a fan of Raikkonen the driver, I’d like to see him back at a stable McLaren team. But he’d be better off signing for Williams right now, than for McLaren, in my opinion.
Both Raikkonen and Ferrari have an option that they can take up for 2016, so if 2015 goes well Kimi will more than likely be on the grid for 2016. He obviously still likes driving the cars. If this year goes badly then I think it may well be goodbye though. Kimi and his partner have just recently had a baby boy so if things show no signs of improving then Kimi is at a stage in his life and career where he will walk away without any regrets.
Allison worked with him at Lotus, he knows what Kimi likes in a car and early signs are positive that this year’s Ferrari is more suited to his driving style. As a Kimi fan I’m feeling fairly positive about this season, even if he doesn’t beat Seb over the course of the season I just want to see him competitive again, as last season wasn’t representative of his ability as a racing driver at all.
I think that it is a bit unfair to say that Kimi’s input didn’t help on the 2014 car, that car was inherently flawed in many ways, not least of which it didn’t have a good front end which Raikkonen absolutely requires to achieve his best performance. The design work on that Ferrari chassis would have been done before Kimi joined, and given the limitations on changes to the chassis during the season Raikkonen spent all of last season trying to make the best of a bad situation with respect to the car’s handling.Dan this talk of Kimi’s motivation is a load of rubbish and always has been. Kimi is sensitive to the characteristics of the car and always has been so when they don’t suit him his performance drops off. That is what happened in 2008. He was a bit unlucky in 2008 with incidents and the such like, but Massa simply got more out of the car that season. People always throw this talk of lack of motivation at him because of his demeanour, but it always has been and always will be a complete non-starter.
The Ferrari in the early part of 2009 was a horrible car and even towards the end of the season when it improved it was still very difficult to drive quickly. Ferrari brought in Fisichella who had been driving really well in the Force India when Massa got injured and he was a long way off the pace of Kimi. Raikkonen was a bit off the pace at the start of the season relative to Massa, but in the second half of the season when the car improved a bit his performance level was outstanding. Only Lewis Hamilton scored more points in the second half of 2009 than Raikkonen. If his motivation level were ever going to drop, it would have been precisely at that point then because speculation was rife in the paddock all season, and even from the year before that Ferrari were looking to bring Alonso into the team to replace him. But his performances were really good in the second half of 2009. Criticise Kimi because he requires a particular type of characteristic from a car by all means, but this talk of lack of motivation is a load of nonsense.
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