Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Raikkonen insists he's still motivated in F1

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Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen has said he is still motivated to succeed in F1 despite rumours that he will be replaced by Valtteri Bottas at Ferrari next year.

Raikkonen's place at Maranello was already under pressure before the Hungarian Grand Prix, which saw him run as high as second place behind team mate Sebastian Vettel before an electrical failure with the MGU-K unit on the Finn's car forced him to retire and denied Ferrari a 1-2 victory in Budapest.

Now Raikkonen finds himself 84 points adrift of Vettel in the drivers championship standings. Although Ferrari has downplayed rumours of a change to their driver line-up for 2016 and said that there will be no decisions taken over the summer break, speculation persists that Bottas has already signed a contract with the team to take over from Raikkonen next season.

However Raikkonen insisted this week he doesn't want to leave Ferrari or F1, saying he still enjoys the sport as much as he ever did.

"I still have the speed and the motivation and I'm going to keep on trying," said the 35-year-old Finn, the oldest active driver on the current grid. "I would stop racing and stay at home if I didn't feel I had the speed or the passion. I have had some disappointments this season but I can't blame myself.

"There have been many times this year when we feel we had more speed than we have been able to show because we were stuck behind another car and not been able to overtake.

"But who knows what might happen next year? It is out of my hands, so we will just have to wait and see," he added, admitting that his place in the team remains in doubt.

The 2007 F1 world champion is currently midway through a two-year contract with Ferrari thought to be worth around £10 million a year. He rejoined the squad from Lotus at the end of 2013 after his earlier stint with the team had also ended prematurely in 2009.

Raikkonen was recently voted second to current world champion Lewis Hamilton in a global survey to find Formula One's most popular driver. Ferrari topped the team poll ahead of McLaren.

’We have to trust Kimi’ - Arrivabene

Critics need to look beyond results - Raikkonen

Click here for a lighter look at some scenes from the Hungarian Grand Prix

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.