Vasseur keen on keeping Raikkonen involved with Alfa F1 team

Alfa Romeo Racing team boss Fred Vasseur says he is keen on keeping Kimi Raikkonen involved with the Swiss outfit in some capacity after the Finn’s retirement from F1.

Raikkonen, who will miss this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix as he continues to isolate at home after testing positive for Covid, announced last week that he will call it a day at the end of the 2021 season on his 20-year career as a Grand Prix driver.

But the 41-year-old admitted that he currently had no interest in planning his life after F1 and was in no rush to decide his future.

Vasseur said that he will let the dust settle in the wake of the Finn’s decision, but hopes to sit down with Raikkonen at some point to discuss a form of future collaboration, perhaps retaining his driver as a special advisor to the Hinwil squad.

“I think I saw that already he had some proposal for other series or something like this, so I think it’s much better to let things calm down,” said Vasseur.

“Then we’ll have time to discuss about what we could do in the future. I would be more than keen to have Kimi on board somewhere, but I think he has to take time.

“I think it would be a mistake [for him] to take another option today, and say: ‘Okay I will do this, and I will do this.’ He has to calm down to realise what the decision means and then it will be time to decide about the future.”

©AlfaRomeo

Raikkonen joined Alfa Romeo in 2019 at the end of his second spell in F1 with Ferrari. His best result so far with the team is a fourth place finished achieved in that year’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

Since, the Iceman has scored points for his team in only four races, including in Hungary earlier this summer.

Rather than remember the shortfall in results, Vasseur prefers to focus on the many qualities the Finn brought to his team that helped the latter’s development.

“He was able to bring to the team huge experience,” said the Alfa boss. “He drove the last 20 years, in a winning team, always fighting for the championship.

“This was a huge support to the development of the team. I’m not speaking about results on the day-by-day basis, but midterm development on the project. He knows perfectly where the performance is coming from.

“I would have loved to have better results and to do more, but that’s also the purpose of racing, that you always want to do more and to get more. But it is like it is and the support from Kimi was an impressive one.”