{"id":18090,"date":"2013-04-16T06:54:13","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T10:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=18090"},"modified":"2013-04-16T06:54:13","modified_gmt":"2013-04-16T10:54:13","slug":"lotus-plays-down-raikkonen-exit-rumours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/lotus-plays-down-raikkonen-exit-rumours\/","title":{"rendered":"Lotus plays down Raikkonen exit rumours"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lotus has played down reports Kimi Raikkonen could be set to jump ship to Red Bull for 2014.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ngg-singlepic ngg-left alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin: 5px 10px;\" alt=\"Lotus-F1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2012-rif-images\/f1-12-logos\/Lotus-F1.jpg\" width=\"288\" height=\"115\" \/>Team owner Gerard Lopez told France&#8217;s RMC Sport that he thinks the rumours connecting the reigning world champions with the Finn are a diversionary ploy by Red Bull.<\/p>\n<p>He said Lotus would like to keep the 2007 world champion, who is currently just three points behind Sebastian Vettel for the drivers&#8217; title lead.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Kimi is a driver we appreciate greatly,&#8221; said Lopez.\u00a0 &#8220;I think he also appreciates the team.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We would like him to stay,&#8221; he admitted.\u00a0 &#8220;For now, I think he cannot see himself somewhere else either.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lopez said he thinks Red Bull triggered the rumours about Raikkonen as some sort of diversionary tactic amid the &#8216;Multi-21&#8217; team orders affair.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;After the third race, to be saying things like that &#8230; I think those who have said it are maybe having other problems.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But that&#8217;s not the case with us, it&#8217;s going very well just as we are,&#8221; said Lopez.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lotus has played down reports Kimi Raikkonen could be set to jump ship to Red Bull for 2014. Team owner Gerard Lopez told France&#8217;s RMC Sport that he thinks the rumours connecting the reigning world champions with the Finn are a diversionary ploy by Red Bull. He said Lotus would like to keep the 2007 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,5340,58,152,60,129],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18090"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18091,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18090\/revisions\/18091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}