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Raikkonen says new Alfa F1 deal not signed yet
Kimi Raikkonen says he's still talking to the Alfa Romeo Formula 1 team about staying on in 2021 – and the Finn insists that he has not yet signed a deal.
Adam Cooper
Published: Oct 8, 2020, 2:27 PM
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Raikkonen, who sets a new record of 323 Grand Prix starts this weekend, has long said that the decision about continuing into next year is his to make.
Motorsport.com has learned a deal will be agreed with the Hinwil team, but when asked whether he will continue into 2021 he said that he is yet to make a final call, and joked about the contrasting views on the opposite ends of his unusually long career.
"Nothing has been decided so far," he said. "And yeah, for sure it started with I didn't have any experience.
"And now I'm getting too old, so that they want to get rid of me! In the middle one way it worked okay. And now it's not great for some people anyhow.
"We'll see. Obviously we have some talks with the team. It's obviously my decision in the end, and we'll see what it comes to be."
Raikkonen downplayed the suggestion that he agreed a deal at the end of September when an option came up.
"If you believe the news, maybe then it's the truth. But I never had an option in my contract. So that's pretty much telling you that it's not true.
"I've read so many things in the news, and over the years, that I stopped reading them, because maybe 90% is far from the truth. And then 10% is something to do with it. So no, I haven't signed anything, I didn't sign last week or a month ago or yesterday or today. We'll see."
Asked if he is enjoying the 2020 season Raikkonen admitted that Alfa Romeo hasn't been as competitive as he would have liked.
"I mean, I enjoy the racing," he said. "But obviously we have more fun when we do better. It's definitely not been something we want it to be, or where we're aiming, but it was quite early on very clear that we are not where we were hoping to be, for many different reasons.
"But the racing I still enjoy, we had good battles. I wouldn't be here today if I wouldn't enjoy it, I can do other things also."
Raikkonen said that progress has been made since the start of the season.
"I think we understood more what it needs, how we need to run it, and then getting all the smaller things around it correct.
"And we learned something in Barcelona that seemed to benefit us quite a bit at least in qualifying, and I think generally we just tried so many things to try to find out what is the best, how can we make the best out of the car.
"I think we've been improving, and also some new parts were lately coming. So it's step by step. We're far from where we want to be, but at least we're going in the right direction and if we can get the best out of it I think we can be around 10th place all the time."
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