Formula 1: Has Kimi Raikkonen reached the end of the road?

By Asher Fair | Jun 21, 2018

MONTREAL, QC - JUNE 09: Kimi Raikkonen of Finland driving the (7) Scuderia Ferrari SF71H (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images) /

Still searching for his first Formula 1 victory since the 2013 season opener, has Scuderia Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen reached the end of the road?

Among the 20 active Formula 1 drivers, seven have won at least one race over the course of their careers. Among those seven drivers, six currently drive for one of the sport’s top three teams: Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Scuderia Ferrari and Aston Martin Red Bull Racing.

Yet of those seven drivers, the driver who has gone the longest since winning his last race is a driver for one of those three teams. That driver is Scuderia Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, who has not won a race since he won the 2013 season opener, the Australian Grand Prix, in his second and final season driving for Lotus.

Since the 2013 Australian Grand Prix, 104 Formula 1 races have been held. Of those 104 races, Raikkonen has competed in 101 of them, as he did not start last season’s Malaysian Grand Prix, and he has failed to win any one of them.

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Since returning to Ferrari in the 2014 season, as he drove for the team from the 2007 season to the 2009 season as well, Raikkonen has earned zero victories and has not finished higher than fourth place in the driver standings, which is not all that impressive seeing as how Ferrari are one of only three teams that have won any of the last 104 races along with Mercedes and Red Bull Racing.

Through seven of the 21 races on the 2018 Formula 1 schedule, Raikkonen sits in fifth place in the driver standings, which is really second to last in this era of Formula 1 since the top six drivers are really in a separate tier thanks to the fact that they make up the driver lineups of the sport’s top three teams. Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen is now just 18 points behind him (68 to 50), a gap that shrunk from 25 points (60 to 35) in the most recent race, the Canadian Grand Prix.

If not for a disastrous slew of blown opportunities experienced by Verstappen and Red Bull Racing as a whole so far this season, Verstappen could very well be ahead of Raikkonen in the driver standings. In fact, he may very well end up ahead of him in the near future.

Not including the two races in which he has been forced to retire, the Bahrain Grand Prix and the Spanish Grand Prix, Raikkonen is coming off of his most lackluster performance of the season, as he finished in sixth in the Canadian Grand Prix, which was last among the drivers who drive for the sport’s top three teams. He finished the race as the last driver on the lead lap and was never competitive throughout it after making an error in qualifying and starting in fifth.

With all of this in mind, has Raikkonen reached the end of the road?

Martin Brundle, an expert analyst at Sky Sports, believes that he has. Here is what he had to say about the matter, according to Sky Sports.

"“Ferrari have to be concerned about Kimi. l know he’s one of the most popular drivers around, but after another mistake in qualifying he finished nearly 30 seconds behind his team-mate on Sunday. What are they going to do? In my view Kimi has reached the end of the road. He still shows a flash of real speed from time to time but he can’t relentlessly deliver the required race pace any more.”"

Ferrari certainly value the fact that Raikkonen is a good team player with Vettel pursuing his fifth career Formula 1 championship. However, since Vettel arrived at Ferrari in 2015 and joined Raikkonen in doing so, his statistics have been astronomically better than Raikkonen’s.

Is it time for Ferrari to move on from Raikkonen, who is currently in his eighth season driving for the team and is driving for the team on his third consecutive one-year deal, and hire a driver who is just as capable if not more capable or at least close to being as capable as Vettel of winning a championship such as Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo or Alfa Romeo Sauber’s Charles Leclerc?

There are already rumors that Ferrari are ready to sign Leclerc to replace Raikkonen in the 2019 season, but nothing has been confirmed, which will only further add to speculation in regard to what their driver lineup will look like next year.

Next: Top 10 Formula 1 drivers of all-time

Is the 2018 Formula 1 season the final season during which Kimi Raikkonen will compete in the sport, or will he be back for a 17th season and ninth season driving for Ferrari in 2019?

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