Lotus is interested in Vettel as Red Bull is interested in Räikkönen
Eric Boullier is not worried about the rumors surrounding the possibility of Kimi Räikkönen leaving for Red Bull next season. The Lotus team director explains that he himself has interest in other drivers, including Sebastian Vettel, even though his priority remains to keep the 2007 world champion within the Lotus fold.
Admitting that Kimi Räikkönen was, like Mark Webber, on the list of potential contenders for a seat at Red Bull in 2014, Dietrich Mateschitz gave the media worldwide something to chew on. The statements from the Red Bull team owner thus exposed Kimi Räikkönen and the Lotus team to a flood of questions and speculations from the press and more or less informed observers of Formula 1: “It’s the traditional game,” relativizes Eric Boullier in the columns of Bild. “It’s not just Red Bull, other leading teams also have an interest [in Räikkönen]. I too have an interest in Alonso, Hamilton, and Vettel. But Vettel, only if he listens to team orders!”
A remark that is obviously meant as a joke given that the Red Bull driver is under contract with the Austrian team until 2014 and has even recently extended his stay in Milton Keynes by two additional seasons, one of which is optional.
The priority of the Lotus team director remains Kimi Räikkönen, and Eric Boullier shows confidence in the arguments available to Lotus: “One thing is clear: Kimi did not return to Formula 1 because he needs money,” says the Frenchman to the official Formula 1 website. “I don’t know if other teams would treat him like we do… We can certainly ‘afford’ Kimi: we have more money than last year,” he adds in Bild.
However, Eric Boullier acknowledged this weekend that he would not hold Kimi Räikkönen against his will: « The question is not whether we are going to keep him, but rather whether he wants to stay? That is the real question. Mr. Mateschitz dreams of signing Kimi – and perhaps he will succeed – but in the end, it is Kimi who will decide what he wants to do. »
For his part, the native of Espoo wishes to remain focused on the current season: “I don’t have a contract for next year, it’s true, but more than that, I don’t want to discuss it. I want to perform well this season and everything else will come in due time,” comments the Lotus driver on the official F1 website. Moreover, when asked if, due to his friendship with Sebastian Vettel, he would make a better teammate than Mark Webber, the Finn sidesteps: “I don’t know. Those are not things I am thinking about at the moment.”
Eric Boullier wonders: Why would he want to go up against Vettel at Red Bull Racing? Moreover, for some, it is not so much about whether Kimi Räikkönen could team up with Sebastian Vettel, but the other way around. On Spécialistes F1, on *Canal+*, Paul Belmondo, former Formula 1 driver, suggested that the triple world champion should take on new challenges: I believe that Vettel will have two choices at the end of the year: either he accepts a great driver alongside him, shows that he is really very good and beats him, or he takes on a new challenge and moves to another team.
