Kimi Raikkonen will not be joining Red Bull as Mark Webber’s successor after his manager, Steve Robertson, confirmed negotiations with the championship winning team ended some time ago.
The Finnish driver had been joint-favourite alongside Toro Rosso driver Daniel Ricciardo, to make the move to Red Bull to partner Sebastian Vettel.
However, recent reports suggest Red Bull has made its mind up and will confirm Ricciardo’s appointment this weekend, which would tie-up with Robertson’s comments.
“The negotiations with Red Bull were unsuccessful and ended a while ago,” he told Turun Sanomat.
Raikkonen’s future is far from certain though with his manager adding: “Kimi’s a free agent. He still has options out there.”
Whilst Red Bull has been ruled out, the latest speculation suggests he could be off to Ferrari to replace Fernando Alonso.
The Spaniard has recently fallen out with president Luca di Montezemolo over comments he made to the Italian media in Hungary and is growing increasingly tired of the lack of success.
Well connected journalist Peter Windsor speculated that Lotus and Ferrari may have agreed to a swap, with Raikkonen taking the Ferrari seat and Alonso joining his former team, Lotus.
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