Kimi Raikkonen, who is set to retire from f1 after the end of this 2021 F1 calendar, claims that the 23-race-long calendar is “too much”.
Kimi Raikkonen, often blunt with his remarks, though pretty relaxed about his surroundings, stands for the alleged exploitative 2022 F1 calendar.
The upcoming race year of F1 reportedly projected 23 races. Though the Iceman will not participate in that season, he believes it will be too much for the F1 personnel.
An emotional send off for Kimi and his family ahead of the final two races of his F1 career ☺️
And nobody at @alfaromeoracing wanted to miss out on wishing the Iceman well 👀#F1 pic.twitter.com/MYWal1u3qu
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 27, 2021
His remarks come after almost completing a 22-race-long calendar this year, including F1’s first intercontinental triple-header (Mexico, Brazil, Qatar).
“It will burn out a lot of people, and this isn’t going to be good for anybody,” said Raikkonen. “So I think maybe as a spectator, it is excellent for having a lot of races, but the people that do most of the work, it is very difficult for them.”
“There has to be some kind of better way to go about that. For some teams. It’s just not an option to just hire more people because they don’t have the money to hire. It’s a bit tricky.”
Kimi Raikkonen didn’t declare retirement over his opinion on the 2022 calendar
It is not unusual to wonder whether Raikkonen declared his retirement after knowing that a 23-race-long calendar will follow 2021. It would be reasonable since the Finn race driver at this age, wouldn’t want to be away from his family for over 23 weeks in a year.
However, the former world champion denies any such factor determining his retirement decision. Instead, the additional number of races inversely reduces his time to focus on testing.
“There was testing between the races. So I think more races is actually better than going racing then testing for a couple of days and then going to the next race,” explained Raikkonen.
“So I don’t think it was any easier in that way. There was less racing. I’ve been home between all of the races so obviously. It has only been two days but I enjoyed the time there and I don’t really have issues with jetlag.”
“Obviously, with the mechanics, with a lot of people, they are doing long days especially with the issues with the cars coming at a later time [in Brazil]. They worked overnight and it’s hard for them.”
Also read: Romain Grosjean reveals fascinating first conversation with Lotus teammate Kimi Raikkonen
