Raikkonen warned Alfa: Whine and I'm gone

Kimi Raikkonen has revealed that during his initial talks with Alfa Romeo, he warned that if they complained about his activities away from Formula 1, then he would immediately leave.

The Finn is known to enjoy physical activities away from his career such as playing ice hockey, jet-skiing, and riding dirt bikes. Even though this would be frowned upon or even banned by most other F1 teams, he doesn’t care, as says he’ll leave if Alfa Romeo “whine” about his activities.

“I haven’t read my contract because it’s worth zero as far as I’m concerned,” he told Vezess when asked if there were any clauses in his deal prohibiting taking part in dangerous sports.

“When we first talked to Alfa Romeo-Sauber, I told them that if they complain about anything, if they whine, I’m not here anymore!

“There are many dangerous things in life. Of course, one always tries to be careful, but it is enough to talk about the problem if it happened.”

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A post shared by Kimi Räikkönen (@kimimatiasraikkonen) on Jul 8, 2019 at 12:17pm PDT

Raikkonen, at 39-years-old, is the veteran of the grid at the moment, and will be 41 when new regulations are introduced in 2021. He admits he would give advice on the changes from a driving perspective, but doesn’t think his view will have much bearing.

“One way or another, everyone has an opinion on the rules, but I don’t know how much of that they take it into account,” he continued.

“I know that drivers want to influence the new rules through the GPDA and if they ask me, I will tell them what I think. We’ll see!”

When asked if he would take up a management position in the future, he shot down the idea before taking a little dig at Liberty Media.

“God forbid, it’s not for me!” he said. “Liberty has more politics than most countries.”

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