Gerard Lopez believes Lotus can keep Kimi Raikkonen beyond 2013 – Formula 1 News
Lotus team co-owner Gerard Lopez has said that they can keep their veteran driver, Kimi Raikkonen beyond the 2013 Formula 1 season despite the ongoing speculation that the Finn may join Red Bull Racing in the future.
Mark Webber of Red Bull has recently announced that he will retire from the sport at the end of this season and according to the reports, Raikkonen is one of the most favourite candidates for the vacancy in the Milton Keynes based
squad.
The Finnish driver has not expressed anything about his future plans. However, he may definitely be inclined towards joining the defending champions after seeing their outstanding performance in the past several years.
Despite the speculations, Lopez has insisted that they have been providing everything to their star driver and he will hopefully stay with them in the future. Besides, he said that they are one of the most competent contenders
in F1 and the 2007 world champion will surely want to stay with them after this year.
“I would say high. He's been treated well like we would treat any driver,” Lopez added. “I think this team has a culture that is quite human and somebody told me that for the human-being Kimi this is the best team and for the racer
he has to decide.”
In addition, he said that the 33-year-old has sound knowledge about the technicalities of the car and he can certainly help them with the development of their next year’s car.
“He knows the technical side of things,” Lopez added. “We developed the car to the point last year that the delta between us and Red Bull was the same at the second race as it was at the two last races. So I don't think that is
much of an issue.”
Presently, the Iceman is standing at third place in the drivers’ championship with 116 points. Moreover, he is ahead of Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes and behind his main rival, Fernando Alonso of Ferrari. He has performed amazingly
well in the season so far and it will be thrilling to see how he shows up in the Hungarian GP.
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