Otmar Szafnauer reveals failed Kimi Raikkonen bid ...

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In accordance with former Components 1 paddock stalwart Otmar Szafnauer, Kimi Raikkonen virtually lined up on the grid with Drive India in 2012.

Szafnauer, the previous Drive India and Aston Martin workforce principal now co-hosting the Excessive Efficiency Racing podcast with Jake Humphrey and Rob Smedley, has revealed that he made a robust push to land Raikkonen forward of the Finn’s well-known return to the grid.

After leaving Ferrari on the finish of 2009, Raikkonen stepped away from the championship earlier than returning with Lotus in 2012. However Szafnauer wished the motive force to race for him – one thing he tried to attain on the season finale in Sao Paulo.

“Practically signed Kimi Raikkonen to Drive India earlier than he went to Lotus,” he mentioned. “Brazil… final race. I needed to meet Kimi on the Hyatt in Morumbi. There is a Japanese restaurant there, so I met him with two of his buddies, attempting to persuade him to come back to Drive India. So he says, ‘OK, finish of the season, come and discuss to me.'”

The motive force, as you’d count on, performed by his personal guidelines. There was no administration to talk of, simply two of his pals with an unlikely background.

“His two buddies, I feel have been the founders of Offended Birds. So there wasn’t a supervisor… it was the buddies and Raikkonen. So Raikkonen says, ‘Proper, let’s go discuss on the Purple Bull celebration.’ So Purple Bull have been having an enormous celebration on the finish of the season. And we get there, and I am pondering we’re not going to get in, the crowds are large… Kimi waited for each one among us to get in earlier than he stepped by way of.”

Podium: race winner Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus

Picture by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Photographs

Sadly for the American, he was unable to strike a cope with the 2007 world champion.

“Because it turned out, I could not persuade him to come back to Drive India. It was a little bit of the whole lot. I imply, it’s a must to persuade drivers too that the longer term seems to be rosier than the opposite gives that they’ve. And to be truthful to him, he went to Lotus at a time the place they received extra races than we did. So that they have been higher.”

In two seasons with the Lotus workforce, he scored 390 factors, 13 podium finishes and wins on the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and the 2013 Australian Grand Prix. In reality, his efficiency was so robust that he virtually bankrupted the workforce because of a performance-based bonus construction.