Kimi Räikkönen says he will continue to strive to get the best results possible in the remaining seven races of the 2018 Formula 1 season after it was announced earlier this week that he would be leaving Scuderia Ferrari for a second time after five years.
The Finn returned to Ferrari in 2014 after his initial spell between 2007 and 2009 that earned him his one and only World Championship, but he has failed to win a race since returning and will be replaced by Monegasque racer Charles Leclerc in 2019, with Räikkönen himself returning to the Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team.
Räikkönen will be aiming to take Ferrari to the Constructors’ Championship in his final year with the team and is aiming to leave them on a high, which he hopes will see him take what would be a very popular victory.
“At Monza, I knew about the decision,” said Räikkönen, who heads to this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix having taken five podiums in the past six races. “From now to the end of the season, we’ll try to finish at the top, and of course this doesn’t mean that the others won’t try to do the same.
“Many things are out of our hands, we can only do our best and score as many points we can; in the end we’ll see if that’s enough. Obviously, I can only drive one car to help the team in the fight for the championship.
“There’s always a lot of talk, a lot of things which can be helpful. It’s always easy to say “this and this will happen” but this is just easy in theory, while in practice it’s always difficult to get it right in many ways.
“So we will see what happens in the next races but we work for the same team and of course we know the rules: it’s pretty simple in the end”.
The WCC would be a fitting end to his Ferrari career. At least he doesn’t give away points like Vettel or the team through botched pit stops and strategy.