Lotus team boss Eric Boullier believes Kimi Raikkonen will fare well in 2012 – Formula 1 news
Lotus team Boss Eric Boullier says Kimi Raikkonen will produce the results in the upcoming season.
Boullier says that Raikkonen has already proved that he will deliver. Questions were being raised since Raikkonen returned to the Formula 1 arena over the Finn’s readiness after a two-year hiatus.
After much deliberations and negotiations, Lotus were able to finalise a deal with the Raikkonen’s management and lured him back into the sport that cherished him the most. Raikkonen had left the sport in 2009 at arguably at the peak of his performance.
The 2007 world champion’s motivation was reported to be the reason behind his decision to leave the game. Although Raikkonen has never really mentioned the reason behind his decision to leave F1 and join rally racing but he has defended the popular notion
of his supposed motivational issues towards the sport.
Raikkonen said that he has never had any motivational problems and his dedication has always been 100%. Yet critics and former drivers have raised their concerns over his readiness and eccentric behaviour. Lotus though have had nothing but praise for the
Finn and have said that they have always give Raikkonen his space and have never encountered any behavioural issues with him.
“I think he (Raikkonen) has shown us already what he can do,” Boullier told Autosport. “We will never recover from the four days we lost, and of course they would have been welcome. Both Kimi and Romain (Grosjean) would have benefited from the mileage, but
it is like it is.”
“We have to deal with the facts and I must say we did the best with the remaining days we had. Kimi is good at this, but Romain is still lacking a little bit of experience,” he added.
It will be interesting to see how Raikkonen performs once the season begins. It is definite that Lotus will be vying for its relatively in-experienced drivers to perform in the season the management have done a good job with the car. Lotus will still be
considered the dark horses of the season, with Red Bull and McLaren leading the pack.
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