‘I’m a Former F1 World Champion

Kimi Raikkonen shocked the F1 world in 2012 when he made his comeback to the sport after a three-year absence. The Finnish star, who won the 2007 Drivers’ Championship in his debut season with Ferrari, had previously left the grid in 2009 following the expiry of his contract with the Prancing Horse.

Although he had been away from F1 for a while, Raikonnen remained closely tied to racing, competing in both NASCAR and rallying events. However, it was still a surprise to see him sign with an upstart team and return to the discipline in which he made his name.

Having rebranded from the existing Renault team, Lotus wanted to make a statement of their intent to eventually challenge for top honours and so brought Raikonnen in to partner Romain Grosjean in their inaugral line-up. It was a bold move which made plenty of headlines, but the former champion didn’t come cheap.

Kimi Raikonnen’s Staggering Contract With Lotus

The upstart team spent big – and it soon caused problems

Over the course of the two-year contract that Lotus agreed with Raikonnen, the team expected to hold their own in the Constructors’ Championship, without believing that they would finish on the podium all that often. In truth, a mid-table position was the best they were hoping for internally. With that in mind, bosses offered Raikonnen a massive £42,800 bonus for every point he accumulated in the 2012 season.

Team accountants wouldn’t have been too concerned after the first three races of the campaign, but Raikonnen soon found his feet at his new home and quickly set about racking up points. Across his debut season with Lotus, Raikonnen picked up seven podium finishes, together with victory at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, as he finished

In terms of performance on the track, Raikonnen’s 207-point haul was the stuff of dreams. The problem was that Lotus couldn’t afford to pay the close to £9 million in bonuses that their star driver had earned over the course of the season.

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Things only got worse in the second year of the deal between the two parties. According to Planet F1, Kimi’s haul of 390 points across the term of the contract led to a bonus payment becoming due that ‘nearly bankrupted the team’.

When the Finn stopped receiving his salary, it was only a matter of time before the situation began to make headlines. Per the Telegraph, Raikonnen threatened to boycott the final two races of the 2013 season after being “paid zero Euros all year”. He never drove in either race, although the official reason given for his absence was that he was undergoing back surgery.

Off the back of his unexpected success with Lotus, Raikonnen went on to agree a return to Ferrari for the 2014 season, while Lotus F1 survived until the end of the 2015 campaign when they were bought out by Renault. In the months leading up to their exit from the sport, they were subject to a number of legal cases relating to unpaid bills, per Forbes.

Raikonnen, though, does appear to have received at least part of the money he was owed. In Heikki Kulta’s 2018 book, The Real Kimi Raikkonen it was stated that the former world champion was still owed around £5 million of a sum that could have been as high as £35 million – including all salaries and bonus payments due. His return to Ferrari lasted five seasons, before he ended his career with a spell at Alfa Romeo in 2021.

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