Kimi Raikkonen will not renew contract with Lotus despite Red Bull snub

Kimi Raikkonen was the given a cold shoulder by Red Bull

Kimi Raikkonen reiterated his stance that he is not willing to sign a new contract with his current Formula One team Lotus after the end of the season unless certain financial and technical conditions from his side are met.

Meanwhile, the Finn, despite being widely linked to Mark Webber‘s Red Bull seat, was given a cold shoulder by the F1 team who recently announced the signing of Daniel Ricciardo.

However, Raikkonen, unperturbed by the recent developments, was quoted as saying by Planetf1, “We made it clear before the last race what was going to happen, so it (their decision) wasn’t really a surprise in the end.

“I don’t think anything went wrong. Probably they wanted a different thing. You go and ask them, I don’t know.

“For me it doesn’t really matter. It is fine and it is not the first time. Sometimes you speak with people and it doesn’t work out.

“From my side nothing has changed since the last race. We will see, there is still a long way to go this year before we have to decide.”

When asked about retaining his contract with Lotus at the end of the season, Raikkonen said: “They know the reasons why there is no going forward right now. Until they sort out those issues we cannot talk about next year. It is as simple as that. They know exactly the reasons.”

The Finn still has other options to consider though. For starters, there have been rumours circulating of Ferrari being interested in signing him for the next season.

Confirming that there are no prevalent issues between him and the Italian Team, he said: “I never had anything against anybody. Obviously certain things could have been different in the past in many areas, not just at Ferrari, but for many teams.”