{"id":19083,"date":"2013-08-25T07:55:19","date_gmt":"2013-08-25T11:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=19083"},"modified":"2013-08-25T07:55:19","modified_gmt":"2013-08-25T11:55:19","slug":"lopez-tips-raikkonen-to-agree-new-deal-quickly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/lopez-tips-raikkonen-to-agree-new-deal-quickly\/","title":{"rendered":"Lopez tips Raikkonen to agree new deal ‘quickly’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Team owner Gerard Lopez is hopeful Kimi Raikkonen will soon sign a new deal to stay at Lotus in 2014.<\/p>\n

\"Gerard-Lopez-2\"As a weekend of fever-pitch speculation nears an end, the Finnish driver’s manager Steve Robertson has now clearly denied rumours Raikkonen has inked a Ferrari contract.<\/p>\n

“It’s a load of rubbish,” he told the broadcaster MTV3.<\/p>\n

“We are in the same place as we were a month ago in Hungary — we do not have an agreement,” Robertson insisted.<\/p>\n

MTV3 claims Raikkonen staying at Lotus next year is backed by F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, who wants as many top drivers as possible spread across all the top teams.<\/p>\n

So if Raikkonen stays put, Ecclestone thinks McLaren with Jenson Button, Mercedes with Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari with Fernando Alonso and Red Bull with Sebastian Vettel is an ideal situation for the sport.<\/p>\n

Raikkonen hinted on Friday that one pertinent issue is the fact Lotus has often been late to pay wages.<\/p>\n

But according to another rumour in Belgium, also crucial to Raikkonen staying next year could be a deal that brings engine supplier Renault – marginalised at Red Bull due to the Infiniti deal – closer to Lotus.<\/p>\n

That would tie into speculation Raikkonen has demanded certain ‘guarantees’ about Lotus’ competitiveness in 2014.<\/p>\n

“We do not need to give any guarantees,” Lopez insists.\u00a0 “We are very competitive.<\/p>\n

“Rather, the question is about next season.\u00a0 We are very close to reaching an agreement with Renault.<\/p>\n

“I believe that we have very good chances.\u00a0 We’ve done a good job to give Kimi what he wants.”<\/p>\n

And, ultimately, he thinks that when the time is right, sitting down with a new contract and Raikkonen will be a straightforward matter.<\/p>\n

“We already talk a lot,” said Lopez.\u00a0 “As long as we are able to give him what he wants and we can react calmly, I believe we can reach an agreement quickly.”<\/p>\n

\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Team owner Gerard Lopez is hopeful Kimi Raikkonen will soon sign a new deal to stay at Lotus in 2014. As a weekend of fever-pitch speculation nears an end, the Finnish driver’s manager Steve Robertson has now clearly denied rumours Raikkonen has inked a Ferrari contract. “It’s a load of rubbish,” he told the broadcaster …<\/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":[59,5262,5340,58,152,306,2198],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19083"}],"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=19083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19084,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19083\/revisions\/19084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}