Kimi Raikkonen has dismissed suggestions that his Austin win shows he should have been kept by Ferrari, insisting he is excited by “different challenges” post-2018.
Raikkonen’s second stint with Ferrari will draw to a close next month after the team opted to recruit protégé Charles Leclerc to partner Sebastian Vettel for 2019.
Raikkonen will instead switch to Sauber on a two-year deal and will head to the Swiss team having ended his five-year, 113-race win drought.
When it was put to Raikkonen whether Ferrari should have kept him, he retorted: “I think people don’t understand I’m actually very happy where I’m going.
“I had my time with Ferrari, I won the championship with them. I won many races with them and for me, as a driver, I want different challenges, I want different things and I’m actually very happy to go there.
“It’s [Hinwil, Sauber’s base] roughly 40 minutes from my home. For sure my family will be happy, I’m happy to be with my family. I think it’s probably the best thing.
“I wasn’t really disappointed with the decision at any point.
“The only thing that I was interested in was to know what was going to happen and that’s the only thing.
“The rest, I’ve been long enough in F1 to know that things… it doesn’t matter if you have contracts or not, things happen for different reasons but I think the end result is that I’m very excited about it.”
Raikkonen will partner current Ferrari reserve driver Antonio Giovinazzi at Sauber in 2019.
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