A couple of years ago world champion Kimi Raikkonen has quit Formula 1 for the sake of the world rally. Now he wants to return everything back. Will it succeed? According to rumors, all can be solved in the coming weekend. . .
Raikkonen left Formula 1 at the end of 2009 with 16 pole positions, 18 victories in the race and the 2007 World Champion title of the Autumn "Rally France" Kimi Raikkonen managed to face one of his rivals. An exceptional case for a competition, where there is no confrontation, and cars go to start at one or two minutes intervals. Who is to blame is no longer to be found. Henning Solberg (he was behind the wheel of the second car) said he was just driving, then he felt a blow from behind-and saw the car of Raikkonen in the mirror in the ditch. Sturman Raikkonen assures that Solberg, the bus warmed up, was on the road by zigzag, and then suddenly stopped and framed his Ford Fiesta under the impact of the district Citroen DS3. Whatever it is, it's symbolic that it was the former Formula 1 champion in the rally that got into such a preposterous rework. For Raikkonen's racehoralist career produces, for example, a strange impression. Olivier Kesnel, the director of the Citroen factory team, says about this: "I would be a little disappointed" if we were to make a bold move on this whole diplomacy: "I don't understand that this is actually Raykonen still doing in the rally ..." In his first full season at the Rally Kimi World Rally Championship, already at Rally Turkey (which was the fourth stage of the championship) finished fifth. But in the following year and a half, the Finns were never able to repeat that achievement, and even more so, rise above. It is difficult to give an objective assessment to Kia's rally results: it will be necessary to take into account that most of the rally participants have much more experience that Citroen DS3 at speed seems to be superior to other machines, and on the other side-DS3 can be prepared not exactly as the cars of the leading in the Leba championship ... But it is easier to assess whether Rykkonen carried out the tasks that he himself was doing. As you know, Kimi loves money almost as much as a race. Meanwhile, the rally program Finns had to pay from his own pocket for two years. It is known that Raikkonen has set itself the goal to get one of the places in the factory teams to race already for salary. In order to achieve this goal, the results have not been sufficiently impressive. It is not far from here to the thought of returning to Formula 1, where Kimi once had all the good results, a certain authority, high salaries, and numerous fans. The problem is that in Formula 1, no one is waiting for a Finns with open arms. Indeed, along with the obvious advantages of Rykkonen, there are certain drawbacks: high financial demands, pronounced antipathy to all sorts of sponsorship activities and instability of motivation-it can be immovable when it catches the rages and is not consumed when there is no interest in what is going on. Last year, Rykkonen and his navigator Kai Lindstrom were ranked tenth in the World Cup. This is the same position they occupy in the current season on the eve of the last race of the example, this year Kimi simply did not go to the Australian stage of the World Rally Championship, but the questions of the journalists said everything as is: "It is very far, and I have had so much time to travel" Yes and after the accident in France, the Finns flew home unexpectedly to Geneva, although the next day could continue the race on the super-rally system (receiving some penalty minutes). The manager of the Benoit Noca team did not even try to invent some explanation: "The machine was not badly damaged, everything was fixable-but Kimi simply decided not to continue ..." The top teams can't seriously consider Reikkonen's candidacy, too, because the contracts with pilots for 2012 are already in place. The management of the Finns ' management of the Red Bull-but the management of the "bulls" of Webber seemed preferable to the capriciant "crane" of Kimi, who was two years of zigzag in the Rellyne sky and unknown what could be acquired or lost. There have been contacts with Mercedes-but, again, nothing has ended as the great and mighty Michael Schumacher is not going to break his contract with the German team. The situation with the personal composition of the Lotus GP team (formerly known as Renault) is not very clear-but rumours are that the team leader Eric Buye and the Raikkonen managers after last year's blabs of the media treat each other with great distrust. In addition, the team now prefers to plant those pilots who bring new sponsors, not those who can "deduct" without the balance of "advertisers" already available. What does Rykkonen's salary count as worthy for himself? In the best years of the Ferrari he received fifty million dollars in a season. . In the end, a single team of Williams showed a full interest in the Finns. Raikkonen visited the team's base, and later, according to the British press, there were long negotiations between the pilot's management and the Williams management-long enough to develop the base for specific agreements. When a successful British "stable" (seven personal titles and nine team members) is not called an outsider, it is only out of respect for merit. In this year, Williams scored five points-eight times smaller than ToroRosso, which has one line higher in the designer Cup. The following are absolute failures, three teams that made their debut last season, and even a closet that did not collect a single score for the thirty-six races. In the ' 70s, fighting Lotus was a great success for Williams, now fighting Team Lotus is a measure of how low the team of Williams is not a single leader. The Brazilians of Rubens Barrichello will soon be forty years old, and he exactly matches the description of the old horse: the thrush does not spoil, but it does not work deep. The young and talented Venezuelan [ [ Pastor Maldonado]] is so talented that the phrase "We took it not out of money" management of Williams had to repeat it in every interview since the contract was concluded. In fact, the Maldonado asset is the title of the GP2 Series (traditionally considered the last step on the way to F1), but the public is somehow distracted by the sponsorship support given to the driver by the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA. It is not surprising at this point that Maldonado is likely to keep his place in the team for the next year. But even the money they brought won't allow the Williams to live on. The team has not been able to get along with major sponsors in recent years, and the failure in the standoff will lead to another financial loss: about $6 million will decrease the share of the TV-broadcast-which the teams receive once a year and which depends on the results of the season. Pastor Maldonado scored one point in the season (against four of his teammates), but with the support of the non-poor sponsors, all three parties-Rykkonen, Williams, and his potential sponsors-are in the middle of a suspended state. The sponsors don't seem to mind giving money under a big name, but don't mind and see the contract signed by the owner of that name. Raikkonen in theory is ready to sign the contract-but only if there is a fixed amount there. The extent to which the parties have advanced in dealing with this dilemma is an open question. For example, October 13, the British weekly Autosport wrote that Kimi's hopes to return to F1 "are connected". A couple of weeks later, F1 Racing magazine announced that the parties had already reached the point of how many days a year the pilot would be able to attend all possible sponsorship arrangements. For Kimi, who has always been sick of the need to shine in the face of enthusiastic crowds, this question may prove to be a matter of principle. On the other hand, once Williams and Rykkonen discuss the details of the working schedule-it turns out that everything else (including salaries) has already been agreed? But why is there not a single clue in the article that has eight stripes and in the course of which the journalists of F1 Racing were talking directly to Kimi? For Rubens Barricello (the record holder of the races), the Rekkonen contract with Williams is likely to mean the end of the pilot's career in the "royal race" "The Return of the Prodigal Kimmy" will certainly benefit Formula 1. First, other sensational changes to this cross-season are not planned-a full shaker is expected in a year when several pilots of the top teams will finish their contracts. Secondly, Kimi will become a co-author of a kind of record: six world champions have never left for the start of one race. The same kind of lubricant is in the challenge that the Finns will throw itself: the world champion has long risked joining the team that is running at the bottom of the table. "Will it be possible for Kimi to create a miracle?" One of the main intrigues of the next season can be formulated if the Finnish driver and the British team conclude the contract. It is impossible to predict whether the combination of "Raikkonen + Williams" will be productive. But you can guarantee that it will be boring neither to the pilot nor to the team, not to the fans