In response to former Components 1 paddock stalwart Otmar Szafnauer, Kimi Raikkonen nearly lined up on the grid with Pressure India in 2012.
Szafnauer, the previous Pressure India and Aston Martin group 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 driving force to race for him – one thing he tried to attain on the season finale in Sao Paulo.
“Almost signed Kimi Raikkonen to Pressure India earlier than he went to Lotus,” he stated. “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, making an attempt to persuade him to return to Pressure India. So he says, ‘OK, finish of the season, come and discuss to me.'”
The driving force, as you’d anticipate, performed by his personal guidelines. There was no administration to talk of, simply two of his buddies with an unlikely background.
“His two buddies, I feel had been the founders of Indignant 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 occasion.’ So Purple Bull had been having a large occasion on the finish of the season. And we get there, and I am considering we’re not going to get in, the crowds are large… Kimi waited for each one in every of us to get in earlier than he stepped via.”
Podium: race winner Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus
Photograph by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Pictures
Sadly for the American, he was unable to strike a take care of the 2007 world champion.
“Because it turned out, I could not persuade him to return to Pressure India. It was a little bit of all the pieces. I imply, you need to persuade drivers too that the long run seems rosier than the opposite provides that they’ve. And to be honest to him, he went to Lotus at a time the place they received extra races than we did. So that they had been higher.”
In two seasons with the Lotus group, 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 nearly bankrupted the group because of a performance-based bonus construction.
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