Ferrari has done another deal with Kimi Raikkonen, and the Finn will be staying on for another season in 2016. It is not clear why the Scuderia would want a man who has regularly failed to get even close to his team-mate (perhaps this is his attraction), but it has meant that Ferrari has not been able to match its rivals in the Constructors’ Championship. Having said that, Kimi can have good days but it is doubtful that he will be earning anything like the kind of money he has been used to earning in the last couple of seasons. The news will set the driver market moving again, with the focus shifting now to Williams, where Valtteri Bottas is likely to remain alongside Felipe Massa. There are other possibilities, such as hiring Nico Hulkenberg, but the team does to have a lot of money to play with and so it is likely to stay with what it has.
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joeblogsf1 
So Seb is running the Scuderia then…
Phil R
Well at the very least he should now not need to endure another torrid time like last year for at least eighteen months.
It is important that to improve your opportunity of winning Championships you manage all of the things that could reduce your chances. Ensuring that your team mate is not a threat is a key element.
Vettel continues to prove that he has mastered that skill.
It is a skill set that Hamilton appears not to have acquired. It seems he wants to achieve his supremacy on the track and I like him more for that.
Really like your last paragraph. Something Hamilton gets little credit for.
Agreed with all that you say, but do you not think the Ferrari management would have preferred someone else? That they haven’t, show’s who’s in control, and all credit to Seb for that. Was the same with Senna at McLaren.
Interesting to suggest the driver has ultimate control of the team. Doubtful.
Assuming Vettel had significant influence over this decision is perhaps evidence that Ferrari have tremendous respect for Vettel, as they should given his career record and performance in the beginning of the year.
If Kimi brings stability and allows Seb to work better, then this is the correct decision. The goal is to win WCC’s, not bicker about who would stick it to Seb.
A very good point.
Perhaps it was sorted when Ferrari were tempting Vettel to leave Red Bull.
Vettel’s position was a little reduced by the thumping he was receiving from the smiling Aussie but he was the best available at the time.
What a shame. Sadly Kimi is no longer the amazing driver he once was. Pretty stagnant driver market then. Guess the only controversy will be whether Button is pushed out or not and who ends up in the Renaults.
Speaking of which, do you see Hulk going to Renault if they buy out Genii? They were after him quite seriously a couple of years ago.
Let’s see
A guess:
Hulkenburg to Haas for a year for a Ferrari tryout.
Gutierrez as the (North) American driver with Carlos Slim’s pesos and Rossi as 3rd/development driver.
Ferrari will never employ 2 German drivers at the same time…..at least that’s my 2 cents
I see this cropping up a lot of times, I wonder where people get that Ferrari would never employ 2 German drivers at the same time?
I would think they’d just go with whatever suits them and is available at the time.
Who is Ferrari waiting for in 2017?
Vettel is good and young
over here in NL, people seem to think Ferrari is after Verstappen…..
They would say that, but if i was a team boss i’d be after him BIG TIME
That is the answer I was looking for. They must be looking for someone for the future beyond Seb.
Sarcasm?
So who do you think Joe is a better F1 driver at present Kimi or Max?
It does not matter who is the better driver now… What Ferrari needs to know is who will be better in 2018
How did we go from 2016 to 2018?
So this effectively locks the driver market: Ferrari, Merc and Red Bull are staying the same, Williams probably as well, meaning a driver move will only be some sort of Hulkenberg Shuffle (Force India -> Sauber -> Force India).
One would half expect Bernie to advocate mandatory driver changes to spice up the show…
Ewww, Tom, don’t go giving him ideas!
Max suggested that years ago!
Truly, it came as a surprise to learn that Ferrari had resigned Raikkonen. Oh well.
No, they’re keeping him. Nobody resigned.
Hah! I missed the hyphen somewhere.
Re-signed, Peter. (You can’t “resign someone”, it’s an intransitive verb*, so Mark’s phrasing is unambiguous even without the hyphen.)
* Except in the set phrase “resign somone to their fate”, but that’s a different meaning entirely.
Maybe my education is lacking. Thanks for the lesson. Tongue-in-cheek doesn’t always work.
On the internet tongue-in-cheek is always overlooked when there is an opportunity to point out bad grammar 🙂
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find “X has been resigned” in The Bumper Book of Insane Management-Speak Phrases as a euphemism for downsized, rightsized, offboarded and other revolting neologisms used to cover up the enforced loss of someone’s job.
(Goes off to leverage core competencies in a customer-facing orientation)
Do you think retaining Kimi is a mistake Joe?
They presumably know better than I do about how to run their team – assuming they are competent
Just curious Joe – have you seen enough from them to make that assumption?
Ferrari is taking another year to size up VES? 😉
Joe,
We have all heard before that MSC was paid directly from Marlboro and Kimi is paid directly by Shell. Is that true and what is the purpose for doing it?
I doubt it
Tax avoidance.
Correct decision. Sure Kimi is not on a par with Seb but team harmony is more important. Also, I don’t think that Kimi is that bad it’s just that against Seb and Fernando he is made to look bad.
I agree with this 100%. I think this signing speaks more of Ferrari’s declared multi-year rebuilding plan. Keep Seb happy and motivated by retaining Kimi who is likely only to beat him on one of Vettel’s bad days! Also, from a marketing point of view, Kimi is a strong fan favourite who undoubtedly brings with him a large group of fans who would support ‘whoever he drives for’, and it almost goes contrary to the expected dispassionate attitude which Ferrari typically display towards their drivers. Retaining Kimi has strong sentimental overtones which help to mould the public perceptions of the team as something other than the win-at-all-costs machine that any serious fan knows Ferrari to be. I definitely think that Kimi’s 2016 contract has little to do with Kimi the driver. If it did, he’d be gone…
I totally agree with you on the Kimi front, but I still think Ferrari want to sign Ricciardo for 2017 and not Verstappen ay this stage in his career. Besides I think Redbull might have bigger long term plans for him.
Team harmony is more important than winning a constructor’s championship?
Look at how Ferrari celebrated winning the constructors in 1999 and then compare it to the celebrations of Schumacher winning the title in 2000. There is your answer!
Also, the flawed way that Ferrari get paid by Bernie means the Constructors is worth less prize money t them (as a percentage) than the rest of the grid.
“Team harmony is more important than winning a constructor’s championship”
Team harmony HELPS win a championship. How is this hard to understand?
Didn’t Ferrari ditch Massa for not contributing enough WCC points? is Kimi doing that much better than Felipe did? you need both drivers to consistently score to ensure the WCC and not just a WDC win. Hamilton/Rosberg, Vettel/Webber. Kimi currently has less than half the points Vettel does, not good, as it demonstrates the lack of consistency.
Sad, as I hoped that Grosjean or Hullkenberg would get a promotion ….
….but it’s a smart move.
Ferrari’s best chance of the title next year is to have a clear #1/#2 strategy whilst Hamilton and Rosberg fight. A more ambitious number 2 may have threatened this equilibrium
“clear #1/#2 strategy”
It’s the Ferrari way, like it or not.
I think they are waiting for Danial Ricciardo , he is locked to RBR untill the end of 2016 then off to Ferarri , a fast italian name in the Scuderia , thats worth waiting a year.
Somewhat surprised it did sound like Bottas was going there. Glad he isn’t. But it does sort of make sense to keep known quantity Kimi given the few alternatives… and with Haas available next year to trial run Gutierrez and Vergne (or maybe Hulkenberg?) While kicking the shins of other bigger names to jump ships.. Hamilton, Ricciardo, Verstappen maybe even Sainz?
Joe, do you think Kimi’s contract will contain a large ‘performance related payment’ component – i.e. no points, no Euros?
There will be a salary but nothing too crazy and a bonus scheme. Marchionne was not willing to pay to get Bottas out of his contract and to pay him as well, so Kimi will be a lot cheaper than that. Its not that he had a lot of sensible alternatives…
For a guy whose motivation has been questioned in previous years and who clearly has made a ton of dough, you have to wonder why he’d bother returning with diminished salary.
I can see him leaving mid season if there is a performance deficit. Odd decision for Ferrari to not ensure WCC point scoring stability with a hungry proven younger talent.
I remember people saying that about Piquet at Benetton pre-1990. Paid per point worked out there.
Ferrari always seem to pay mega amounts of money for star drivers. Why is this? With the exception of Schumacher (but that also involved a complete rebuild of the team) they never seem to get value from theie drivers. Why don’t they ever balance that strategy with putting a good, young, cheap driver in the car as a bit of a punt? Any young driver would just about drive for Ferrari for free wouldnt they?
I’m guessing because Ferrari’s F1 activities form the majority of their marketing for the road car division, they need to be seen as the destination for the star drivers, maintaining the ‘elite’ appearance their customers desire.
Even doubling Seb’s points wouldn’t move them up to first place in the constructors so it never made much sense to buy Bottas out. It was probably just a tactic to destabilize the opposition and talk down Kimi’s price to spend on the car..
A driver market shake up would be been interesting. Doubtless the keyboard monkeys will also be disappointed as there will be less click bait to churn out.
However, I guess you have to put faith in Ferrari’s management. There is no where to hide when engineers are able to compare all the relevant performance data (as the Lewis/Nico relationship has shown).
Perhaps Ferrari are holding off a year before making a long term decision on their second driver.
It may open up a few more options with drivers who are coming out of their contract at the end of next season.
Gosh, is it really wise for team bosses to ignore the opinions of pundits and journalists…?!
No, bet the farm on a guy who seems more interested in the hospitality fridge for an ice cream bar and Coke after he parks the car mid race. I am sure Kimi is really pumped for 2016, get a young guy in the car with something to prove.
Kimi does not say ‘how high’ when they say ‘jump’. I think after perspiring a few kilos I’d be keen for an ice cream and a drink. People constantly want drivers to be ‘themselves’, so lets get on with it.. lets see what he can do with a new contract on ‘his’ track this weekend.
Erm, wasn’t his car broken? I thought he had a KERS issue or something. You can’t really judge someone’s motivation based on them getting out of their broken car and grabbing an ice cream. I popped for an ice cream at work yesterday when we had a network outage (espresso Magnum, try one, they’re ace) and I’m still pretty motivated to do my job…
In all the criticism of Raikkonen and claims that they’re bowing to Vettel’s wishes to not face competition from his team-mate and so on, no-one has brought up the fact that according to the GPDA web survey done a little while ago Kimi is the most popular driver on the grid.
Which might go some way to explaining why a company who uses F1 as its primary advertising method might choose to keep the Finn.
A whole truck load of drivers cursing Kimi then. Everything seemed to depend upon him going, a chain reaction that’s not happening.
JB too can start a similar chain, or not!
Ferrari is so conservative that news are hard from surprising me. They will always be second…
It was the wise thing to do under the circumstances. Bottas isn’t blowing the doors off Massa and you can’t have two Germans in the team… so who’s left?
Ricciardo has a few questions to answer, which he might well do in a year’s time. The trouble is that he’s a potential number one and Ferrari already has one of them who is performing magnificently. If Vettel’s in for the long haul then the last thing that Ferrari needs is another rooster in the henhouse.
Kimi has had some poor luck and presumably the data isn’t too damning on his apparent misdemeanours. He’s playing the game as far as sponsor commitments go and, more importantly, Maranello may yet have to shell out a fair whack in performance bonuses over the course of 2016. Hope so.
Well, Kimi is one domino that has not fallen.
As for the other big domino — does JB’s option at McLaren depend on whether Ron Dennis is able to assemble the cash to complete the majority share purchase? Is there any news on that front?
No
Hi Joe
In your last sentence ” but the team does to have a lot of money to play with and so it is likely to stay with what it has.” should that read “does SEEM to have “?
Yes
Good bye, Kimi, for 2017 when he departs from F1. Kimi does not like F1 (likes the money) but that is where the money is. That is fine, Kimi.
There is other money to be earned (to be worked for) in motor sport. Traditionally, most of those jobs go to young men, occasionally women, who worked their way up.
Could Kimi work with them?
Kimi still makes the most amount of sense for Ferrari in 2016.
Hello Joe, Nice to have you back….hope the lobster can restock in time for next year!
I don’t see any reason why Ferrari should have dropped KR, the Kimster is still in the top 5-6 as a driver, with tremendous natural speed, and has been let down by the car mostly this year. He gets on with Vettel so the team doesn’t have any silly inter rivalry to distract the management who can therefore, concentrate entirely on getting themselves fully competitive.
Much as I like Bottas, he hasn’t shown too well this year, and so why buy him out, when a good deal and driver is already to hand…also, the Kimster is good for PR purposes, being a crowd favourite.
Apart from that, on Finns in general, what a country…4-5 million people, but 4 WCD titles, and 3 WCDs….they do have a big oil industry worth billions of euros, under Neste, who operate in countries outside of Europe as well….and they already have a Grand Prix, since 1951….in what I still call the Rally of the 1000 Lakes…..if one wants speed and spectacle, one only needs to sit on a raised bank, in one of the forest stages there, and watch supremely skilled and utterly fearless, drivers in action at 100/120mph between the trees and log stacks on gravel….with no run offs….probably the greatest spectacle in the whole of any motorsport year….and Kimi was happy to do that as well…which puts him above the bar for me, just for that!
Yes, agree entirely with that last point. And what’s so special about Bottas anyway, compared to Raikkonen ?
The latter is still Ferrari’s latest world champion, by the way.
On that basis they’d have been employing Scheckter until 2001…
🙂 🙂 🙂
An afterthought:
nobody seems to mind that a guy from “Corriere dello Sport” regarded by his colleagues as “respected”, can peddle absolute bull***t telling us that Bottas already signed for ferrari and the amount of cash involved.
This stuff is then repeated by all as “credible reports coming from Italy…”. Now presumably he will sail on to write again in similar fashion whatever takes his fancy. That’s journalism for you.
Now some are speculating in the same vein that Raikkonen has taken a pay cut. Have they seen and read his contract? Well, actually,no!!!
Just thought I’d mention it
The thing is that he probably believed what he was told because someone was trying to get the story out so as to get Kimi
To agree to a cheaper deal. Everyone thinks it is easy being an F1 journalist but we all get led astray sometimes. So if upu want to crow, fine, but it doesn’t really help the good guys being motivated to try and help the public. If we didn’t try and did not care you’d get nothing…
Thanks for that reply Joe.
Clearly that chap is only worth reading if you want to know what is not true. So could you please advise on how to tell which of the following is the author of a piece of news:
– one who is in bed with the people he reports on, or in their pockets
– the investigative journalist pursuing the truth [they must be as rare these days as the speckled flying chimpanzee]
regards, O.T.
Joe, wonder whether you saw Autosport’s photo retrospective of the 1990 F1 season. Was especially attracted to a tap dance with Benetton dance shoes by a certain journalist at Australia…Wow Joe you were quite the showstopper! The little I know of you is through your blogs where you seem to be a quiet retrospective guy. Maybe you’ve mellowed with age, but would be great if you could give youngsters like me (I was only 7 then, with no idea of F1 whatsoever) insights into ur past adventures too..Would certainly make it an entertaining read 🙂
Simple. He loves racing, and the fans love him.
Was surprised that Ferrari are keeping Raikkonen, but I suppose paying Williams big bucks for Bottas, who hasn’t exactly blown away Massa, didn’t make sense. Grosjean might have been a good bet…….by the end of their time at Lotus, he had Kimi more or less covered. Having said all that, I do find Raikkonen very entertaining, so at least we are in for some classic radio rants in 2016…..