Kimi Raikkonen Will Drive For As Long As He Wants: Alfa Romeo Boss Clarifies Team is Never Letting Him Go

Published 01/02/2020, 11:37 AM EST

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For the 2020 Formula One season, Alfa Romeo will be fielding an unchanged lineup of Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi. As it turned out, team principal Fredric Vasseur saw little sense in altering the driver line up at the Alfa Romeo team in 2020.

The Alfa Romeo team principal admitted that he was not aiming to attract bigger fish into the team, as they were not what the team needed. Speaking to Blick newspaper, Vasseur stated that he was happy with the performance of his current Alfa duo.

“What good would that be?” Vasseur noted. “I do not want different drivers that are so frustrated after three races with us that they would stop.”

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He affirmed that the Swiss-Italian team’s goal is to target sixth or seventh place in the 2020 constructor’s world championship. So the priority is to have two drivers who get along well together and Giovinazzi improved after the summer break, while Kimi Raikkonen could race for them as long as he pleases.

Last year, Alfa Romeo took eighth place in the 2019 constructors standings ahead of Haas F1 and the struggling Williams F1 teams. Their best finishes of the year were fourth and fifth with Raikkonen and Giovinazzi at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Although the young Italian could only rack up 14 points to Raikkonen’s 43, Vasseur was more concerned about the constructor’s championship.

Looking ahead towards the near future, Fred Vasseur acknowledged that majority of drivers are out of contract at the end of the 2020 season, including both of his wards. To that end, Vasseur is of the opinion that over the course of the coming season, there will be plenty of fodder in the rumor mill regarding the drivers’ seating arrangement in 2021 and beyond.

For now though, Alfa Romeo will be training their focus on the 2020 season, and have been boosted by new recruit, Robert Kubica.

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Dhruv George

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.
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