AUGUST 25, 2005

Raikkonen at Ferrari (without the question mark)

Usually reliable sources are now telling us that Kimi Raikkonen will definitely be moving to Ferrari in 2007, which clearly upsets the applecart of the Formula 1 driver market, unless we are to believe that Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher will agree to be in the same team together. This being the case there would be no room for Felipe Massa. However, if there is no future for Massa at Ferrari in the long term, Jean Todt would have been unlikely to have signed up the Brazilian because a Todt Family company manages Felipe and it would have made no sense at all to have made such a move. Todt could have put in any driver for 2006, without needing to burn a major family asset.

Thus, if the sources are correct, Michael Schumacher will not be at Ferrari in 2007. This is unlikely to have happened without Michael knowing about it, because he and Jean Todt have always been close and it is unlikely that Todt would have pulled such a stunt. So, one must presume that Schumacher knows he is retiring and all the talk of moving elsewhere is a smokescreen to cover what Ferrari is really up to.

The validity of all these arguments rests on the source of a Raikkonen deal but we have found this source to be highly reliable over the years and sufficiently connected to know who is going where.

So the next question that leaps to mind, is who is going to be going to McLaren to replace Kimi in 2007?