Why Raikkonen remains a risk for Ferrari

Next season, Kimi Raikkonen will complete his eighth season with Ferrari. In world championship history, only six drivers have spent more time with a team.

Michael Schumacher (Ferrari), Jack Brabham (Brabham), Jim Clark (Lotus - although his final year in 1968 was cut tragically short), David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen (McLaren) and Jacques Laffite (Ligier) will be the only drivers who will have longer associations.

Raikkonen is unique among those in that he was once paid an eight-figure sum not to race for Ferrari in 2010 at the end of his first stint. He is also unusual in that, similar to Laffite at Ligier, he has spent his time with Ferrari in two stints, one from 2007-09 and one ongoing from '14 that could even stretch beyond his new one-year contract.

It is rare for drivers to have such long stints with teams. Since the world championship begun in 1950 (and excluding the anomalous points-paying Indianapolis 500s of 1950-1960), there have been fewer than 50 instances of a driver spending six or more seasons with a single constructor.

And this number includes drivers such as Harry Schell, who raced Maseratis in world championship races in seven years but only three times for the works team, and Jenson Button - who spent seven seasons at ostensibly one team while it transitioned through three guises as BAR/Honda/Brawn and eight at McLaren (if you include his one-off at Monaco this year).

So it's rare to spend that long at a team, and although there are several cases of drivers having three stints with teams - Pierluigi Martini at Minardi, Nigel Mansell at Williams, Nick Heidfeld at Sauber, Piercarlo Ghinzani at Osella being the main ones - going back doesn't happen with great regularity.

Longest F1 driver-team associations

Drivers spending seven or more seasons with teams

Looking at the 21 drivers listed above, which includes all of those who have matched Raikkonen's current tally, it's an interesting mixed bag.

There are plenty of superstars in there, and perhaps it isn't surprising that a dozen of the 33 drivers to have won the world championship had unusually long stints with the team for which they won the title. Raikkonen himself is among that number.

There are also some great servants of big teams who got near titles but never quite made it. David Coulthard, Laffite (considering the heyday of Ligier) and Felipe Massa stand out in this category.

There's also some unusual cases, long-running servants of minnow teams. Martini and Ghinzani exemplify this link.

Raikkonen, unusually, bestrides several categories. Today, he is a dutiful support act to Sebastian Vettel, capable of some strong results and, without team intervention, able to go for wins in races like Monaco and Hungary this year. But he was billed as the star turn when he first joined, replacing Michael Schumacher, and even though he won the title in his first year with Ferrari in 2007 it was a surprise to see how strong Massa was in comparison.

Of the 21, the only other driver who had their best season with a team in their first year was Hulme, who was third in 1968 after moving to McLaren as reigning champion. On average, the best season is the fourth - and again Raikkonen defies the norm by the fact that his fourth season, the first of his Ferrari comeback, was his weakest.

What the list does hint at is exactly what Ferrari has gone for: the model of a strong lead driver supported by a good number two. That is what Raikkonen has been re-signed to continue to do, given he hasn't won a grand prix for Ferrari since his great win in a mediocre car at Spa eight years ago.

Being considered 'a good number two' is one of those motorsport euphemisms that no driver really wants to be saddled with. Martin Brundle once labelled himself as that following his season alongside Michael Schumacher at Benetton, and it's a description that has in many ways stuck with him. It's a bit like when a rising single-seater driver is touted as someone with a good future in sportscar racing - it basically means 'not good enough to be an F1 top gun'.

Ultimately, few can become gold standard F1 drivers, and there's no disgrace in that. But if you take the view that Ferrari is right to go for this firm number one/number two structure, then it's a perfectly logical move to re-sign Raikkonen.

"Teams like stability, but also like results. That's probably why the most prevalent type of long-term driver is the ultra-successful one. There's a warning for Ferrari in this."

Looking at the 22 names above, two are inextricably linked - Hakkinen and Coulthard. From 1996-2001, the pair were team-mates with Hakkinen winning 20 grands prix and two titles and Coulthard taking half the number of wins and once second in the championship.

It's the driver that replaced Hakkinen in this dynamic, Raikkonen, who is now cast in that Coulthard role - albeit as a very different kind of driver.

But while the support act usually sees themselves as a potential leading man (Rubens Barrichello is the classic example of this during his stint as Schumacher's number two), Raikkonen appears to have accepted that his lot in life is now this. That's probably regarded as a good thing from Ferrari's perspective, and much has been said about the fact he doesn't rock the boat.

Ferrari's approach is a coherent one, but it can be just as dangerous as having two leading drivers taking points off each other. Looking back at Hakkinen's third and final tilt at the title in 2000, Coulthard only took points off Schumacher by finishing ahead of him on two occasions in 17 races.

While the eventual gap between Schumacher and Hakkinen was 19 points, it doesn't take too much for that gap to be closed with a team-mate getting stronger results. After all, beating your team-mate's rival into second place was worth a net eight-point swing back then, and that's increased to 14 under the current points system.

While everyone is happy to cite situations like Williams 1986, when Mansell and Piquet took points off each other, what is often ignored are the years when a weaker (but not necessarily weak, because on his day Coulthard was capable of some stunning performances) team-mate has not given their team leader potentially title-winning support.

This is an area where the fundamental tension lies in grand prix racing: the battle between the individual and the team. Like no other sport, these cannot be separated. In football, you can win the Ballon d'Or for player of the year but the real objective is for the team to be a success (even if there are some high-profile examples reputed to be more fixated on the individual honour).

Teams like stability, they like good working relationships and they also like to keep star drivers happy. Vettel is Ferrari's star driver - his new three-year deal is testimony to that - and it's clear that re-signing Raikkonen has appeased the championship leader.

But teams also like results. That's probably why, when you look at the lists of the long-serving drivers, the most prevalent type of driver is the ultra-successful one.

There is a warning there for Ferrari in this. Raikkonen is a loyal servant, toes the line and is happy with his lot. He ticks all of Ferrari's boxes, sure, but are those boxes really the correct ones? He's a weak point in the battle for the constructors' championship and even if you shrug your shoulders and say Ferrari doesn't care about that because it gets a whole heap of cash from F1 simply for being Ferrari, there is a financial cost attached to this.

There could come a time when Vettel might regret having a driver who delivers an erratic performance level alongside him in the garage. For no matter how mighty Raikkonen was - he turned in many astonishing performances in his McLaren pomp that stand among the greatest witnessed in grand prix racing - for myriad reasons he's not the same driver anymore.

And for all the fact that he's a good driver for feedback, gets on well with the team and can sometimes still catch the eye with his speed (take a look at Ben Anderson's in-depth story in Autosport magazine to understand more about all these plus points) Raikkonen has not looked like a potential spearhead for a top team for several years.

Consider this scenario: Ferrari and Mercedes are equal on performance in the Abu Dhabi finale. In one scenario, Vettel leads and needs Lewis Hamilton or Valtteri Bottas to finish third with his team-mate blocking off second place to win the title. In the other, the Mercedes driver has the advantage and needs their team-mate to hold second ahead of Vettel.

Which scenario would you prefer to be in?

You can make a case for either, and Ferrari has clearly set out its stall. But sometimes that approach leaves you without as strong a hand to play as you might need. After all, the point of a number two is that the very best ones can pick up the baton if required.

A safe pair of hands is all well and good, and they have their uses - but there is a risk inherent in this strategy that potentially outstrips the danger of two number ones.

Another phrase euphemistically used is 'a good company man' - that's what Raikkonen has become, and exactly why he has been given another year.