Kimi Raikkonen can surely win championship title with Lotus in 2013 – Formula 1
Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen made a tremendous comeback in Formula 1 with Lotus in this season and has surprised everyone with his amazing pace.
Raikkonen had some issues with Ferrari which became the cause of the pre-mature termination of his contract back in 2009 and he decided to leave the sport. Afterwards, he took part in the World Rally Championship where he failed to prove his potential and
returned to F1 in this year.
The Finnish driver was compared with Michael Schumacher who also came back with Mercedes in 2010, after his retirement, but unfortunately could not attain competitive results for his team and was completely outclassed by his teammate, Nico Rosberg during
the last three seasons. Furthermore, it will be important to mention that the 43-year-old decided to say goodbye to the sport following the news of Lewis Hamilton’s move to the Brackley based team in the next season.
However, the Finn has impressed everyone with his tremendous comeback as he delivered some remarkable performances in this season and secured third place finish in the drivers’ championship.
Besides, he had been deemed as one of the most competent title contenders in this year’s championship fight by the team principal of the Italian squad, Stefano Domenicali.
Domenicali also said that the 2007 world champion is one of the most talented drivers in the world of F1.
Additionally, the team principal of Red Bull Racing, Christian Horner called him a great threat for the top drivers during the middle of the season when he was well in the title contention.
It is to be noted that the Enstone based team struggled a lot with their qualifying pace throughout the year due to which Raikkonen and his teammate, Romain Grosjean could not attain desirable grid slots for the races and eventually remained unable to secure
good positions in most of the races.
Nevertheless, they emerged as one of the most competent title contenders in this year’s championship because of their reliable car and commendable tyre management.
The 33-year-old scored his first and the only grand prix win at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi in which he gained the lead after Lewis Hamilton of McLaren retired because of a technical issue in his car.
Even though, he has expressed satisfaction on his performance in this season and praised the overall efforts of his team. However, he insisted that they need to work harder for the next season so as to improve their qualifying pace in order to secure higher
grid positions to get better results in the races.
“It's been okay [this year], but then for sure you want to do it even better,” he said. “When you start doing a few good results you expect to do even better, but it's not been easy and we've been quite consistent - not strong always - but we've been consistent
and that kept us in the championship for a long time and brought us many points.”
Besides, he said that they have got the potential to challenge the big teams and they are pushing harder to come up with a more competent car in the next year.
“Hopefully we can build it up next year and I know the team next year so it should be a bit more easy to start strong next season,” he added.
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