Kimi raikkonen why leave f1

The next few races came down more to strategy rather than speed. He came extremely close to winning in Monaco , but lost by less than a second to Juan Pablo Montoya.

Michelin were forced to bring in narrower tyres and it seemed as if they had lost the advantage they had been enjoying over Bridgestone all season. McLaren also announced that they would see out the season with old the MPD chassis and would not bring out the MP as had been planned.

With one race to go, Schumacher only needed one point to win the championship. The team also narrowly lost second place in the constructors' championship, finishing third, two points behind runners-up Williams , and 12 points behind Ferrari.

Mathematically, Williams or McLaren could have won the championship at the very last race. The season was one of the closest in recent years. His McLaren, especially the Mercedes engine, suffered repeated breakdowns, allowing him to complete just two of the first seven events. Following on from this encouraging display, the McLarens qualified on the 2nd row of the grid in Germany. He retired again from the Hungarian Grand Prix after starting from 10th place on the grid, again on lap He also took the fastest lap.

At the next race in China , he finished 3rd, only 1. He later managed to make up some ground: he finished 6th, 2. At the last race of the season, the Brazilian Grand Prix , he overtook pole sitter Barrichello, even before they had reached Curva De Sol. Many pundits predicted to be filled with great on-track battles from a resurgent team. He was also referred to by Ross Brawn and Jean Todt as a driver whom Ferrari might consider in the future. The car was reported to be too soft on its Michelin tyres, with the result that it was not generating enough heat to post competitive qualifying times.

The best qualifying position that a McLaren driver could manage in the first 3 races was 6th. He looked set for a podium in Malaysia until a faulty tyre valve failed and dropped him out of the points.

Bahrain saw him achieve his first podium of the season with a third place behind Renault's Alonso and the Toyota of Jarno Trulli. An almost certain win was denied at Imola after a driveshaft failure, but he won the other two races, putting him within 22 points of leader Alonso. He registered strong, comfortable wins at Barcelona, beating local boy Alonso and at Monte Carlo, never dropping his lead in both races. The resultant vibrations caused his suspension to fail while he led on the final lap, sending him into the tyre wall and handing a further ten points to his rival Alonso.

Changing a tyre would have given him a relatively safe third place. However, tyre changes were only allowed in in cases where a "punctured or damaged tyre" could be changed for "clear and genuine safety reasons" and there was no precedent for whether the stewards would consider a flat-spotted tyre dangerous enough. This incident, in part, resulted in a rules clarification allowing teams to change a flat-spotted tyre without punishment.

He finished 2nd behind Fernando Alonso. He claimed 3rd place in the race. It was his third retirement while leading a race during the season. On all three occasions, it was championship rival Alonso who took advantage to win.

He told a news conference, "We need to work in a better way just to make sure that the car is very reliable. No other driver had previously managed this feat. It would emerge that he had 5 laps of fuel more than teammate Montoya and 6 more than Alonso during qualifying — and still managed to outpace them.

He recovered, but spun his car after pushing too hard while chasing Giancarlo Fisichella. He eventually finished fourth. He went on to win, for the second year in a row, in Belgium at Spa-Francorchamps. The win was secured when he overtook Renault driver Fisichella who had started third on the grid, and had led most of the race on the final lap — which Formula One journalist Peter Windsor thought the most impressive move of the race.

The year was relatively dissaspointing for him and McLaren, going the season without a win and ending in 5th place in the Drivers' Championship. At the end of the season Ferrari announced he would join the team next year to replace the outgoing Michael Schumacher. In Raikkonen moved to the Ferrari team and became the higehst paid driver in the sport. He also became one of the few drivers to win on his debut for the team. His victory in Kuala Lumpur came on the fifth anniversary of his maiden victory at the same track.

He moved up to second place by the third lap and finished in that position, behind his team-mate Felipe Massa. He also secured the lead in the championship. He managed to take his second race win of the season and the fastest lap of the race.

However, the stewards decided not to penalise him. In the race, he set the fastest lap during the first stint while catching up with Robert Kubica who was in second place. The safety car was deployed when Adrian Sutil's car broke down in a dangerous position. Both he and Kubica jumped ahead of race leader Lewis Hamilton when they pitted during the safety car period.

He gave up the lead to his teammate Massa, but was far enough ahead of Toyota's Jarno Trulli , to secure second place and eight points. He kept pace and got up to second when Kovalainen spun. He then chased after Hamilton, and set the fastest lap as he drew up directly behind the McLaren.

During the first pitstop, Ferrari did not change the intermediates on his car in the hope that the track would become dry. He finished fourth, a lap down. He was running fifth when the safety car came out after a crash involving Timo Glock. This dropped him down to 12th, but he eventually finished in sixth. He lost a position to Alonso at the beginning of the race but managed to finish third owing to Hamilton's tyre puncture, passing Alonso during the pitstops and Massa's retirement after an engine failure.

He stayed fifth until the second round of pitstops when he exited before the fuel hose was properly disengaged from his car and left one of the mechanics with a fractured toe. Two laps later, he suffered a similar engine failure to Massa in the previous race; a connecting rod in his engine broke and he was forced to retire. He passed Kovalainen and Massa at the start to be second, and took the lead from Hamilton on the second lap.

He pulled away, setting the fastest lap of the race and built a five second gap. He looked set to win but owing to a late-race rain shower, Hamilton closed right up to him and tried to pass him at the final chicane with two laps to go. Hamilton then repassed him for the lead.

While trying to catch up, he lost control of the car, smashed into a wall and retired. He stayed in 14th position for the first two stints. He climbed to ninth position in the third and last stint in which he also set the fastest lap of the race.

He remained in this position for most of the early laps. On lap 14, Nelson Piquet, Jr. He set the fastest lap of the race as his tenth of the season. This equalled Michael Schumacher's record of ten fastest laps in a Formula One season. He gained places after a collision between Hamilton and Massa, Kovalainen's hydraulic failure and an overtaking manoeuvre on Jarno Trulli. At the start he stayed second with his teammate and now Ferrari's world championship contender, Massa, behind him in third place.

As Kubica failed to score, he finished third in the championship. He set 10 fastest laps throughout the season. The pace of the Ferraris and McLarens in particular was significantly slower than the likes of the Brawn , Red Bull and other outfits who were struggling to keep up with them in He was forced to make an unscheduled pit stop on lap 43 and subsequently retired with differential failure.

Sebastian Vettel and Rubens Barrichello 's ten and five-place penalties respectively meant that he was promoted to 7th. This meant that he could only finish 10th. He retired from the Spanish Grand Prix due to a hydraulics failure after qualifying from the back of the grid. He admitted that he was still disappointed because he missed out on pole narrowly to the Brawn of Jenson Button. He maintained this position until the chequered flag. He could only finish ninth, out of the points.

However, he dropped to eighth during the pit stops because of traffic and remained until the finish. In the race however he collided with the Force India of Adrian Sutil like in the previous year in Monte Carlo , as the German was emerging from a pitstop. While Sutil managed to recover back to the pits to replace a nosecone, Raikkonen was forced to retire a few laps later with radiator damage as a result of the incident.

However, having built quite a gap between him and Webber, he held on to take 2nd place. At the European Grand Prix , he qualified 6th. He jumped to 4th at the start of the race. He then moved up to 3rd after the second pit stops jumping Heikki Kovalainen for the last podium place, and stayed in that position until the end of the race, claiming his second straight podium.

At the Belgian Grand Prix , he qualified 6th, jumping to 2nd at the start of the race. After the safety car was removed, he passed Giancarlo Fisichella to take the race lead and led all the way to the chequered flag for his first race win in 25 races, and the first and only one for Ferrari in It was his 4th consecutive podium finish.

He had qualified fifth and was not able to gain a place at the start of the race, as he was on hard tyres. He put on softs for his second stint and was able to close in on Nick Heidfeld at about three quarters of a second every lap. However, an accident involving Toro Rosso 's Jaime Alguersuari brought out the safety car on lap 44, which kept the field stationary for a further five laps. He went wide in an attempt to overtake Hamilton but recovered without losing a further place to Nico Rosberg.

His race was already ruined when Mark Webber swerved into his path, damaging the Ferrari's front wing. At the pit stop while having the wing changed, fuel dripping from the fuel rig stuck on Kovalainen's car caused the Ferrari to briefly burst in flames as the two cars were exiting their pit stops. He lost a place at the start of the race to Kamui Kobayashi.

He would be replaced by Fernando Alonso. He was expected to return to McLaren alongside Lewis Hamilton but negotiations with the team failed. The BBC reported that he refused the contract owing to wanting to drive a race-winning car, not to mention Toyota not offering a large enough salary. After his return to the sport and time with Lotus, he went back to Ferrari between and where he partnered first Fernando Alonso, and later Sebastian Vettel.

I had the privilege of working with him at Ferrari and know the fantastic person he is. We will all miss him and his unique style and wish him and his family the best for the future.

Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Look out for your regular round-up of news, reviews and offers in your inbox. Get all the latest news, reviews and exclusives, direct to your inbox. Your information will be used in accordance with our privacy policy. Vijay Pattni. Aston Martin boss Otmar Szafnauer insists reports linking him with shock Alpine switch are 'not based on fact'. Grand Prix Weekend.

Red flag. Sorry Something's gone wrong. Live Commentary. Watch F1 TV. Join Live Session. Kimi Raikkonen to retire from Formula 1 at the end of Kimi Raikkonen has announced he will hang up his helmet and gloves and call time on an illustrious Formula 1 career at the end of the season… The Finn, who won the world title in and will be 42 at the end of the season, made his debut in the Australian Grand Prix with Sauber.