Ferrari President Sergio Marchionne has once again criticised Kimi Raikkonen’s performance after the Finn only finished fifth at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Amid a close battle with Mercedes for the Constructors’ Championship, the lack of standout results has been noticeable for the veteran with just two podium positions in the first nine races.
Compare to that seven for team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who added another second on Sunday finishing just six-tenths behind race winner Valtteri Bottas, and it’s not surprising to see the German has more than double the points of Raikkonen and Mercedes holding a 33-point advantage in the teams’ standings, despite Vettel leading the Drivers’ Championship by 20 points.
“I think Kimi has got to show a higher level of commitment to the process,” Marchionne told Reuters after the race. “There are days when I think he’s a bit of a laggard, but we’ll see. I am going to talk to him, we’ll see what happens.”
It’s not the first time the Italian-Canadian, who was at the Red Bull Ring for the race, has questioned the 2007 world champion either. After the Chinese Grand Prix in April, which he also attended, Marchionne claimed Raikkonen “seemed to be doing nothing” as he failed to pass the then less competitive Red Bulls to also only claim fifth that day.
Also at the time, he claimed talks would be had with team boss Maurizio Arrivabene but what makes his latest comments more significant is they come amid growing speculation as to who will be at Maranello next year with both current drivers yet to sign a contract.
In response to the “laggard” claim, Raikkonen defended his performances telling reporters: “Obviously I want to do well. My team wants to do well. I can only do the best that I can.
“Unfortunately it’s not been very straightforward sometimes, but that’s part of F1. We keep pushing and I’m sure things will get better.”