{"id":19819,"date":"2013-11-06T07:12:18","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T12:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=19819"},"modified":"2013-11-06T07:12:18","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T12:12:18","slug":"raikkonen-already-regretting-ferrari-return-pundit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/raikkonen-already-regretting-ferrari-return-pundit\/","title":{"rendered":"Raikkonen already regretting Ferrari return – pundit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kimi Raikkonen might already be regretting his impending return to Ferrari, according to a pundit.<\/p>\n

\"Kimi-Raikkonen-car-4\"The Finn had a particularly bad-tempered weekend in Abu Dhabi, starting with his no-show on Thursday and ending with a rare first-lap crash and rapid return to the airport in flip-flops.<\/p>\n

Former driver Christian Danner, now a pundit for German television RTL, thinks Raikkonen is not simply annoyed at his situation at Lotus, but also with his impending move to Ferrari.<\/p>\n

“Kimi is annoyed that his manager is sending him back to Ferrari,” Danner told the German newspaper Bild.<\/p>\n

“He sees that Alonso at the moment is driving for the ‘golden pineapple’ at best — far away from winning,” he added.<\/p>\n

Danner thinks Raikkonen will also not be looking forward to the environment at Ferrari.<\/p>\n

“Lotus gave him all the freedom he wants, and at the moment quite clearly a better car as well,” he said.<\/p>\n

“What’s he going to do when Luca di Montezemolo tells him he’s going to too many parties?”<\/p>\n

Danner’s comments are interesting, but in light of Lotus’ well-document financial problems, returning to Ferrari is probably a good move for Raikkonen — particularly with 2014 tipped to be an engine-dominated championship.<\/p>\n

Reports are also questioning the legitimacy of Lotus’ new backers, Quantum, who promised to buy 35 per cent of the team months ago, but are still yet to deliver a single euro.<\/p>\n

Germany’s Sport Bild also claims Quantum chief Mansoor Ijaz has often been behind shady deals that ultimately did not happen.<\/p>\n

And Livio Oricchio, the correspondent for Brazil’s O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper, said the American-Pakistani was even in court last year, for not paying back huge loans.<\/p>\n

Der Spiegel magazine reports that one possible solution for Raikkonen is that Bernie Ecclestone will direct Lotus’ official prize-money straight to the 2007 world champion’s account.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the reality of Raikkonen’s Ferrari return is that the Finn rightly wants to cash in on his status as one of the best drivers in F1.<\/p>\n

Timo Glock was a paid driver for Marussia until the end of 2012, when he lost his seat to a ‘pay-driver’.\u00a0 He is now a paid front-runner in the German touring car series DTM.<\/p>\n

When asked about Raikkonen’s threat to strike over his unpaid wages, Glock said: “It shows what really is going on in formula one.<\/p>\n

“The sport needs to have a real think in order to keep itself alive,” he told German radio Sport1.<\/p>\n

“Apart from Ferrari and Mercedes, everyone is having difficulties,” Glock continued.\u00a0 “They need to think about whether it’s right that drivers aren’t being paid.”<\/p>\n

Ferrari, meanwhile, is happy with its top lineup for 2014, with Alonso alongside another former champion.<\/p>\n

“Kimi suddenly and unexpectedly became available in the summer,” team boss Stefano Domenicali told Welt newspaper.<\/p>\n

“We had to take the opportunity.\u00a0 It was almost not a conscious choice we had to make,” he added.<\/p>\n

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

Kimi Raikkonen might already be regretting his impending return to Ferrari, according to a pundit. The Finn had a particularly bad-tempered weekend in Abu Dhabi, starting with his no-show on Thursday and ending with a rare first-lap crash and rapid return to the airport in flip-flops. Former driver Christian Danner, now a pundit for German …<\/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":[59,2542,5262,149,93,5340,152,148,4702,4683,150],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19819"}],"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=19819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19820,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19819\/revisions\/19820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}