F1 | Raikkonen's renewal, Minardi “A conservative choice”

Sergio Marchionne and Maurizio Arrivabene renewed the agreement for next season with Kimi Raikkonen that will continue his work beside Sebastian Vettel. A decision that want to aim to a work continuity and puts a certain calmness into the team, differently from what is happening at Mercedes and red Bull with internal fight between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton on one side, between Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen on the other.

The arrival in Milton Keynes of a very young and fast Dutch driver is creating some problems to the Australian driver that started the season as a first driver. In just six events, Verstappen has already affected a win (in Spain) and two second places (in Austria and Great Britain) and now he is just 10 points away from his teammate in the overall standings. At Mercedes, there is an open fight and some nervousness between two drivers engaged in the struggle for the world title.

“The team wanted to privilege calmness in a hard moment with technical difficulties. I do not know how much it will an advantage in term of results. Honestly, I would have preferred a different choice, especially after seeing Verstappen’s effect at Red Bull. His arrival put on Ricciardo a lot of pepper that was useful to revitalize the situation with an amazing result. At Mercedes, in spite of a tense atmosphere, the challenge between the drivers forces to do always the best as we could also see last Sunday. Nico and Lewis ignored each other”, Gian Carlo Minardi says.