Kimi: What went wrong?

Kimi Räikkönen. The Iceman. Despite not turning a wheel in a Formula One car since the season closing race in Abu Dhabi 2009, he has – repeatedly – been the centre of attention during the silly season. “Will he”, “won’t he”, “please come back!” “Please stay away”. The opinions are varied and the facts are often false but 9 seasons of Formula One delivered just one title, won by a single point. ‘Just’ is the wrong word perhaps, as to become world champion is an incredible achievement. So why is a man with so much skill at his disposal sitting about in the WRC, having one just one short tarmac stage and crashed more times than we can remember? It’s an extraordinary turn of events, but a lot of it wasn’t down to Kimi himself, rather a large bank from the coast of Northern Spain…

So just when did it start to go wrong for Kimi? Well, it never really went right during the McLaren years where his blinding speed was limited by the woeful reliability of the cars, most notably the 2005 car – the MP4/20 – that won 10 of the 19 races but broke down so often that Räikkönen finished a distant 2nd in the championship despite superior speed. It was then that the contract with Ferrari was signed and 2006 was just a wasted, winless and luckless season. But bring on 2007 and all would be okay, right? After all, he was joining the team that had dominated the first half of the decade. But crucially, McLaren improved and Ferrari seemed to take a step back. The F2007 was superior on the faster circuits such as Spa but couldn’t get anywhere near McLaren at the tight circuits, such as Monaco. Mistakes and mechanical failures meant that Kimi – despite winning 6 races – appeared to luck into the title thanks to the implosion at McLaren. Granted, he won more races than anyone else but would he really have won the title had McLaren not hit the self destruct button? You can’t deny that he is a deserving world champion, but 2008 seemed to unravel all the good work he had done in 2007.

Ferrari’s 2008 challenger just didn’t suit Kimi at all. He won two of the first four races but after that things just fell apart. A crash in Monaco, taken out in Canada, a mechanical issue in France and Ferrari’s awful wet weather ability in Britain cost him vital points, but the key issue was in qualifying. Kimi couldn’t get the tyres to work and quite often found himself on the third or fourth row of the grid, resigning him to a race stuck battling to get to the podium. By the time Ferrari fixed his issues it was too late and the race at Spa almost epitomised his season – the king being dethroned. He only finished 23 points behind Lewis Hamilton after 18 races, but it wasn’t enough and he had clearly not lived up to his pre-season billing of being the overwhelming favourite. A poignant and suggestive moment was on the podium in Brazil when Räikkönen in 3rd was behind Alonso – driving for Renault – in 2nd. Massa was very affectionate towards Alonso on the podium whilst Räikkönen was almost given the cold shoulder. At the end of 2008, Ferrari effectively had 3 drivers but one was representing Renault. A poor start to 2009 (and being outscored by Massa 22 points to 10 pre-Hungary) left him in a less than safe position within the team as two was company, but three would be a crowd…

As is so often the case in Formula One, contracts were there to be broken and money talked. Rumours of Räikkönen quitting at the end of 2009 were quashed in Monza in 2008 when Ferrari announced that the Finn would stay with them until at least the end of the 2010 season. Well, they were meant to quash the rumours but they didn’t and the deal ended up costing Ferrari a sizeable about of money.

Santander started sponsoring McLaren in 2007 and it was perfect – Lewis Hamilton would represent the brand in the UK (a key target at the time for the Spanish bank), whilst Fernando Alonso would be the face of Santander in Spain. But when the team imploded in 2007, Fernando left and Santander were left with a deal that saw their brand on the McLaren’s until the end of 2010, now extended for another year. Alonso wanted to go to Ferrari and Santander was eager to put him there. An initial contract was signed that meant that Alonso would drive for the Scuderia from 2011, but that wasn’t enough for Santander. When Ferrari announced that the bank would sponsor them from 2010, the writing was on the wall even if Alonso wasn’t confirmed until the Japanese Grand Prix in October. Kimi had chances with McLaren but the plans fell through. There were rumours about Mercedes but they came to nothing. But were Ferrari right to get rid of Räikkönen for Alonso or should Massa have made way for the Spaniard? Hindsight is a wonderful thing…

The bare facts don’t lie but they go nowhere to revealing the truth – in 2008 Massa beat Räikkönen across 18 races and in 2010 Alonso has done the same to Massa. Ergo, Alonso is better than Raikkonen, closed book, end of story, right? Wrong. Massa in 2010 is suffering from the same issues that niggled with Räikkönen in 2008. Would Kimi have performed better than Alonso this year? You can only speculate but it’s hard to imagine Räikkönen throwing it off the road at Spa, jumping the start in China and making such a mess of a few of the other races. There’s no doubt that Kimi would be performing better than Massa, but again, hindsight is brilliant, so why did Ferrari force their 2007 champion out in favour of the Brazilian?

A large factor was Massa’s accident in Hungary. Ferrari assured him that he would have a place at the team when he returned so naturally that left Kimi as the outsider. To many it seemed logical – Massa had been ‘best of the rest’ in the first 9 races of 2009 whilst Kimi appeared to be on a downward spiral after the highs of 2007. But then Kimi came alive, took two consecutive podiums before winning at Spa and – with a car that was hopeless (as shown by Fisichella and Badoer) – he finished 6th in the championship, just one point behind Lewis Hamilton. Yet Kimi was out of a drive and apparently lacking in motivation. F1 can be very cruel sometimes but – as stated before –money played a big part.

With Kimi having signed a contract for 2010, Ferrari now had to break that contract but still had to pay his salary – an estimated $17m. Felipe Massa would have been on a relatively low retainer in comparison whilst Santander (rather helpfully) paid Alonso’s salary of around $20m – $25m. There is also the thinking that Räikkönen never really fitted in at Ferrari; the team was built around Schumacher and they expected Räikkönen to be like Schumacher and live and breathe Ferrari. That was never going to happen and there are those who believe that his self inflicted isolation from the team played a large part to their separation. Kimi’s ice-cool nature hugely contrasted the Ferrari ideal of being a big family, something that Massa – being Brazilian and therefore similar in personality to the Scuderia – conformed to.

So Kimi was out of the way, Fernando & Felipe in the team for 2010 and the Finn now had an empty calendar and a rather healthy pay cheque for doing nothing. But the latter wasn’t an option for Räikkönen and his apparent lack of motivation in Formula One coincided with growing aspirations in World Rally. He dabbled in the sport by driving a Fiat Punto in Rally Finland in 2009, rolling out of the even when running well (at the time something put down to his inexperience, but he would encounter the same issues in 2010!) Once F1 was out of the frame, he quickly signed a deal that would put him at Citroen Junior Team alongside Sebastien Ogier with hefty sponsorship from Red Bull.

Yet despite distancing himself from Formula One the rumours continued. With Red Bull sponsoring his World Rally adventure, so the stories came and went, linking him to Red Bull Racing. A one year extension for Webber meant there would be no room left at the inn but still the stories persisted whilst Renault said they were in contact with Kimi. An angry press release indicated that Renault had blown their contact out of proportion and that Räikkönen was really unhappy at the way the French squad had used him for their own benefit. Or was it the other way around?

Well, Petrov’s future was hanging in the balance and Renault undoubtedly used the opportunity to get more money from Russian sponsors. Now they have Lotus onboard but only as sponsors. Not only that, but Lotus has entered a vast array of motorsport divisions, and there are wonderings of whether they can sustain the huge financial input needed – F1, GP2, IRL, Sportscars amongst others. Kimi stays in the WRC with a shiny new Citroen DS3 and it’s hoped he’ll stop falling off the road.

Will he come back to Formula One? Possibly, but it’s difficult to see where and with age no longer on his side, when…

Source: F1Zone