Kimi Raikkonen says 2021 regulations won't affect retirement

Kimi Raikkonen

Raikkonen says 2021 regulations won't affect retirement

Nothing has been decided beyond 2020 for the Finn.

Martin Macdonald

Saturday 1 June 2019 11:45

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Kimi Raikkonen says that the upcoming proposed regulations changes for the 2021 Formula 1 season will not affect his decision whether or not to retire from the sport after a long career, and that he could potentially take advantage of the new rules if they level the playing field.

The FIA and Liberty Media are set to introduce new rullings within F1 which will affect such things as revenue distribution and the standardisation of engine parts.

They are being planned in order for the elite teams like Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull to receive more competition from the midfield and lower outfits.

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This could be perfect for Raikkonen, who is now with Alfa Romeo after being replaced at Ferrari by Charles Leclerc. However, it won’t be regulations that influence his retirement.

“No, no. Because in the end, [when] we make a big rule change, you never know [what will happen],” he said when asked if the changes would factor into his future plans.

“Generally, the big teams are still there, because they have the research to do a lot of different things and figure out the best way to do it.

“Maybe it would be nice that if everything got much closer, for the sport, not just for the drivers, but for the sport. But honestly, it’s very unknown.

“We can guess, but it has zero impact on driving. In the end, who knows.”

In the 2019 championship, the Finn is 10th while his partner Antonio Giovinazzi is one of three drivers yet to score a point in the driver rankings. This means that Alfa Romeo is ninth in the constructors’ championship, but Raikkonen doesn’t believe the team’s success can be gauged by the current results.

“I don’t have something that ‘oh we need to be here then I’m happy, if we are five points away from that, I need to be unhappy’,” he continued.

“They’re numbers.

“As long as we have the feeling at the end of the year that we’ve done all we can and we keep going forward, we can be proud.

“I think we started the year okay. I think we could have started better with the first races and then [Spain] was definitely difficult for us. That’s how it goes sometimes. We just need to look into our own things and not really look as much at what happens around.

“Obviously we can see the numbers and we are where we are in the championship, but as long as we keep understanding and improving, I think that’s the aim, and obviously taking the team step by step forward.

“If I’m last, I’m last. If I’m 10th or whatever, it’s not really… Once the last race is over, life is no different after that.”