I think that Kimi needs a manager more than ever. It is a lot easier to be without manager if you sit with a 3 year contract somewhere. I sure hope he has someone reliable that handles his business, if not he will be broke in no time.

Wasn't he in Portugal?

As for last year, I only remember him in specific rallies moaning because of the Hospitalities not being like the F1-ones

Now seriously, it's a photo caption and we already had recently a few funny pieces of news talking about Räikkönen with too many "ex-" in a sentence. And I find it quite weird that the usual MTV3 and co. didn't jump out with big headlines when this was published (the news is already a few days old). Of course, deals are signed and broken, but I remember Robertson talking about the Nascar deal and Busch saying they had always talked to Räikkönen's people and never with the guy directly. In other words, 4 weeks ago there was somebody taking care of his business. In case it's true something has changed since then, I suppose there're good reasons for that.

Robertsons were not managing his finances. For this he has accountants and financial advisers. They were managers, getting him contracts to drive and negociating the sums and clauses in those contracts.


Whether he'll be broke or not it's not up to them, it's up to the way he invests the money earned in 9 years of F1.


P.S. He has money to live decently for the rest of his life without needing to work anymore. Just investing them in the right way.

He doesn't even need to invest. Even the regular bank account with 0,15% interest will be more than enough.

I'm sure if Kimi wants a big deal somewhere then Robertson will help him...

That`s how I took it also. The question isn`t whether he needs management or not. The answer is when he feels like needing some, Robertsons it`s gonna be.

Hi Wolfie, Thanx your responses


BTW I recognize that WRC needs to hurry up in making it's profile higher than ever. See it is like US single seater series. The longer it will be for the two to get united the lesser the excitement will be. Presence f Kimi should help them up their public profile, it does not matter how many times he rolls his car on WRC track, (as long as he is not injuring himself), it is rally and WRC needs star like Kimi. NSACAR is a huge fan business and should be fun doing it. But it is hugely US thin, this mentality this attitude and so on, If Kimi get's kick on this attitude I donno. He did now showboated his GF much, nor released LP in his F1 time so, acting like Film Star might not be the thing at this moment. BTW, NASCAR have this Loooooong life for Race Divers, so I could imagine Kimi doing it a bit later on. As of Red Bull... well they are lost soul a bit isn't it?

I had the opportunity to be present at this weekend's WRC event in Greece and got the chance to ask Kimi about his future in NASCAR and he said he doesn't know anything. It seemed to me that he's focusing on WRC while the rest is done for fun more or less. Kimi's a pretty cool guy if he's not surrounded by 20 journalists and cameras. On Saturday at the afternoon regrouping in the service park he didn't get out of the car, he stayed inside for about 40-45 minutes. He only got out after taking the car to parc ferme but he was open to autographs and pics with him, albeit fans had to get down because "You have to come here because I'm not getting out." but it was full of fans and journalists around the cars so that's understandable. When he returned from the last special stage of day 2 there weren't so many fans around and the journalists were busy with Loeb so I managed to take another picture with him and talk to him a bit.

If the Robertsons are gone, the whole NASCAR ting, and Kyle Busch's outbursts, makes more sense. Someone has tried to screw someone there.

Kimis appearance changed a lot since he went out of F1.

Looks like a photoshop.

a) he had a sun burnt
b) there were almost 40ºC outside the car, try to guess how many inside that black car
c) isn't that picture photoshopped to try to get rid of the McKlein's watermarks?

d) yep, he's trying to grow something as a beard, but he can keep trying as hard as he wants. It won't happen

I guess that he was just too lazy to shave as he wanted to get as much sleep as possible

I don´t think that he has changed so much compared to 2009

He'd better be careful, long hair and scruffy looks does not sit well with FiA

I suppose that one of the big advantages of being the beloved kid of the FIA big boss is that you're the only one allowed to look all scruffy

From FOX Sports:

"Kimi Raikkonen: Things appear quiet on the Raikkonen front, and many are surprised that he did not secure a ride for Sonoma. However, the management group on the NASCAR side has made recent inquiries for Watkins Glen and Homestead."

http://msn.foxsports.com/nascar/story/NASC...p-season-062011

Thanks for the link!

Time will tell...

Sorry for the silly question, but I have a little idiomatic problem here. Who has made the inquiries? Räikkönen's people or the Nascar people?

Raikkonen's NASCAR people.

(I said that as a half joke. Kimi's people in North America.)

Thanks a ton!

BTW, Räikkönen published in his webpage a few days ago a "Kimi NASCAR races review" where he has some very nice words for NASCAR, and it doesn't sound at all like some typical PR canned statements.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=6694150&a...egoryid=2492290

robby gordon talks about upcoming races, and abit about kimi

e) Now he is a regular smoker

One thing that I never understand about formula One is that the teams leave Kimi in cold with NO DRIVE. For sure money talks but there are other things talking isn't it? I cannot imagine Kimi being so bad in Ferrari. I cannot agree that Kimi was worse than Felipe. Neither I can imagine that Kimiis no match of Kubica. How about Alonso? Hamilton? Give me a break.

I happen to agree that he wasn't so shit that he needed to be fired and kicked off the sport but, at the end of the day, he. chose. to. quit. He's without a drive because he didn't feel like accepting any of the multiple offers he supposedly had. That's 100% on him.

As for Red Bull and their dismal lack of appreciation for Kimi's Herculean efforts to save the WRC... Marko's point was not that he didn't increase people's interest in WRC, it's that what he did wasn't worth the $SomethingStupid Red Bull paid him. Which, incidentally, is more or less what got him booted from F1, too. He's good but not good enough for the very special snowflake deals his managers have managed to negotiate for him. Those may work for a year or two (until you get found out) but people who pay through their noses tend to get impatient and pissy pretty damn fast if they're not seeing any return for their investments.

I got the message, I did not for nothing, noted that Kimi did not release his LP during his F1 time. Robertson is a great manager, and as log as he made his contract as according to the content of negotiation, the payer should be not expecting a cent more of investments from Kimi, if Red Bull wet their pants with themselves becoming the savior of WRC. Who is Kimi to raise the whole WRC up? Gimmie a break.
If this did not help put Kimi in drive formula one car, then so be it. I know tho if Kimi were to drive one of those top formula one car, he will make Hamilton shit in his pants in his cockpit, so as Vettel.

Guess what! The video of rally sweden is finally online!
http://www.kimiraikkonen.com/videos/15.asp

With this speed, we probably won't see Rally of Gods until next year... Nice video

Well, I fail to see how winning a championship at Ferrari is shit, but that sums it up. He could certainly have driven for McLaren in 2010 but he didn't feel it was financially viable and wanted to be paid what Hamilton was on, not what they offered him and what Button was willing to drive for. C'est la vie.


Red Bull didn't pay him that much in rallying really, but it's just that Red Bull needed a reason to back away from the junior team that Citroen wanted to dispense with. Marko's Red Bull driver programme is full of such knee-jerking as well.


Rather like Santander have done I would imagine. Afterall, they really funded Raikkonen's first year in rallying.

Really, the problem of that picture is the photoshop to get rid of the watermarks.
IMO the guy looks pretty normal in the pictures of this weekend, just unshaved and with sun marks:

I think the harassment he was a target of for quite some time eventually did get to him. He is human too and has feelings.

I think had Alonso not fallen out with McLaren, Kimi would not have become such a target for such a smear campaign. I think these two things are indeed connected, one came after another and to me it's obvious that there was an agenda for a lot of people to drive Kimi out of the team to make room for Fernando. I did not accept it then and I don' t accept it now - it's the all-time low I've seen fans and reporters go in F1 in the time I've watched. I think fans and the media should respect that a driver and a team have a contract, and not try to get it broken. Doing so is extremely disrespectful.

Personally if I were a F1 team owner or a manager, I would not let this happen. I would work hard to make sure the team isn't affected by such a public harassment campaign directed at one of my employees. Montezemolo and Domenicali failed and they deserve no respect for the way they handled it... in fact they even stirred it up. I can't respect such a way to do business.

I accept that Kimi chose to walk away from F1, but he did not choose to do it until he had been seriously harassed for a couple of years.

Anssi: SD and LdM just stirred it up? Who do you think leaked the Alonso contract news to that Italian newspaper? Bunch of classless crooks.. He could have still driven for McLaren or Red Bull if he wanted to. But he has had enough with F1, and probably expedited his rally plans which would have happened anyway in 2011 or 2012.

I understand the replacement for Alonso. Räikkönen didn´t perform as expected. Not saying he´s worst than Alonso, they´re both top class, but on that particular time, he struggled -despite being WDC- to be anywhere near his previous shape. I don´t think there´s need to blame anyone. Ferrari chose Räikkönen first, the link didn´t suceed, and they went for Alonso. It happens all the time. I don´t understand that constant scrap between both guys´ fans, needing to feel their guy is better to live in peace. There´s nothing to choose between them performance wise considering all the time they shared F1.

Exactly, the difference is in their characters.

From WRC.com:

How’s the NASCAR going?

“It’s good fun actually. It’s another completely different style of driving, but it went quite well and I’m going to do some more later on this year.”

http://www.wrc.com/news/features/ten-quest...7&page=5314

Sounds good!

But I don't. Ferrari always looks for a "leader" - a baby-sitter, who would wipe their tears and sniffles after another failure. Now they have such a leader and what? Raikkonen had never "leaded" them that way and Domenicali set him guilty to safe his own ass. I wonder what he's going to say at the end of this year...

I think the link did succeed. The link succeeded with the people that signed him; the championship is there. But the team Räikkönen signed with is not the same team he left.

The scrap between fans had been feeded by the politics behind the scenes and now it is difficult to stop it.

Good to know. Such a shame he forgot to tell when, where, what, ...

Potatos?!

POTATOES?!?!

I would actually say the exact same thing if i were asked that.
I love potatoes

Can't go wrong with a good roast potato.

Potatoes can be used to produce vodka, so...

Good to know he's having fun. I miss him in F1 though. I guess he could have pushed Alonso harder than Massa does. And I'm almost 100% sure he would have won Spa last year!

Brilliant!!!

That is an important point most forget.

I don´t know, I don´t like conspiracies. But it might be like that. Now we know that the team was trying to lure Alonso as early as 2008 summer. And I don´t understand that. Räikkönen was WDC and leading another championship easily after Montmelo, and had a couple of bad races after that. No reason to look for a new driver. As I said before, Räikkönen struggled, and I would understand the team decided him being dumped in mid 2009, but why the hell they were looking for a new driver in 2008 summer

Because either they knew things about Kimi's fundamental driving/personality that made them think of the long term, or they figured replacing Massa with Alonso would be an improvement.

Nope. What changed was that Jean Todt had a falling out and wasn't Team Principal any more. It's fairly well know that Todt, for whatever reason, steadfastly would not sign Alonso under any circumstances. Once Todt was gone, and especially when Santander was thrown in as a sweetener, you have your conspiracy. Not much of a one really. As Frank Williams said, Formula 1 is a sport for one afternoon every two weeks and a business at all other times.

My personal opinion is that if we knew which are the real reasons why Todt left (or was shown the door) this all would be easier to understand.

It is 2011. does it even matter anymore?

Well, if winning the World Championship and two constructor's wasn't what was expected then I wonder what was. The team then decided to back a driver in Massa who has proved consistently to be not up to the job of winning a championship.

Well, talking about it will not change a thing of what happened. But as far as it stays a calmed and quiet discussion, why not talking about it?