Why Formula 1's great wasted talent should retire

An American comedian once said, "If quitters never win and winners never quit, what fool came up with 'Quit while you're ahead'?" Perhaps this is the aphorism Kimi Raikkonen is clinging to as he ekes out the dying embers of a career that once promised so much.

Let's face it, the Formula 1 paddock is heaving with folk who are just happy to be allowed through the gates: F1 drivers long past their career best; low-ranking junior-formulae drivers being fleeced by tail-end teams for 'development' gigs that entitle them to do little more than warm a seat in the garage; team and sponsor personnel without discernible portfolio (memorably dismissed by one time-served paddock figure as "full-kit wankers"); and the hordes of shuffling troglodytes, inexplicably granted media access, doing unpaid work for websites you've never heard of.

Yes, F1 isn't short on underachievers, but one of the saddest cases is the man who had the talent to be world champion more than once.

To witness Raikkonen fulfilling the role of submissive partner - willingly or otherwise - to another driver is almost upsetting to those who recall what an exciting talent Kimi was when he first broke on to the F1 scene. I vividly remember standing in the thicket of trees by the inside barrier at the Jochen Rindt Kurve during practice for the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, and the only driver to match Michael Schumacher for pace, precision and sheer commitment there - almost shaving the barrier - was Raikkonen.

Previously that position in F1's pecking order had been occupied by Mika Hakkinen, but he'd retired, a spent force, at the end of the previous season. And yet, here was 22-year-old Raikkonen slotting seamlessly into Hakkinen's place, with no need for deference to his more experienced team-mate, David Coulthard. He was the real deal, a fully formed ace.

Had McLaren-Mercedes been able to muster a car simultaneously quick and reliable enough over the following seasons, history might not record five successive championships for Schumacher before Fernando Alonso broke his monopoly in 2005.

Raikkonen retired from 10 of the 17 grands prix in 2002 but stood on the podium in three of the races he finished; and, but for the development blind alley that was the MP4-18, Raikkonen might have bagged the title in 2003, when he finished second to Schumacher, or even 2004, when the first version of the MP4-19 (supposedly the MP4-18 with all the mistakes excised) proved to be a dud.

He was outstandingly quick in the anomalous one-set-of-tyres-per-race 2005 season, winning seven of the 19 grands prix, but retiring from the lead of two others, along with that disastrous suspension collapse on the final lap at the Nurburgring, cost him the title once again.

Even then, though, there were those within the team who felt that he lacked the work ethic to back up his remarkable talent - and, worse, that his burning-the-candle-at-both-ends lifestyle was impinging on his performance. F1 was already a marginal-gains sport; the days of a driver being able to wake up half an hour before the race, jump in the cockpit and drive the wheels off the car, then retire to the bar or go back to sleep again were long gone.

He was well out of the hunt in 2006 - the MP4-21 was at least more reliable than its predecessors, but lacked pace compared with key rivals Renault and Ferrari - and at the end of the season he took his leave of McLaren. Over in Maranello, Luca di Montezemelo was so convinced that Raikkonen was a star of the future that he in effect forced Schumacher into retirement to make way for him. That is what a hot property Kimi was.

Ferrari excels at self-destructive internal politics but if Raikkonen had been doing a brilliant job it would have been difficult to build a case for buying out his contract in 2009

You'll recall that, at Interlagos that year, Kimi was a notable absentee from the grid ceremony to mark Schumacher's departure, and that when quizzed about this on live TV by Martin Brundle he replied that he was "just taking a shit". This attitude may continue to titillate his legions of acolytes on the internet, but it's profoundly unimpressive to the people who genuinely matter to a racing driver's career.

In hindsight, it seems that the rot set in once Raikkonen donned rosso corsa. Yes, he won first time out, in Australia, but it was team-mate Felipe Massa's charge to sixth from the back of the grid (after an engine-change penalty) that caught the eye. Raikkonen was largely unchallenged, Nick Heidfeld having made a great start in the BMW-Sauber and holding up the squabbling McLarens of Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, to the extent that by his own admission Kimi "fell asleep" in the closing laps and nearly dropped it at Turn 3.

As the season developed into a four-way battle for the drivers' championship, it was Massa who looked most likely to take it by stealth, not Raikkonen, but Kimi's win at Spa was crucial. When Alonso binned his McLaren in the wet at Fuji, and Hamilton wore his tyres down to the canvas in Shanghai and mired himself in the gravel, Raikkonen finished ahead of Massa on both occasions, overtaking him in the points and ensuring he got the nod at the final round. There, in Brazil, he was assisted by Hamilton making a pig's ear of the opening lap and by Massa compliantly giving up the lead at the second round of stops.

Having won the title by a single point from Hamilton and Alonso, Raikkonen kicked off his defence in 2008 with wins in Malaysia and Spain, but once again he didn't convincingly have the better of Massa, who took the title battle with Hamilton to the final round. Mid-season, at the French Grand Prix, Raikkonen was leading when one of his exhausts cracked, and Massa slipped past to win by 18 seconds; Hamilton was no threat, running a distant 10th owing to a grid penalty.

Team orders were banned back then, of course, but that race still makes for a fascinating juxtaposition with the events of the recent Hungarian Grand Prix. At the start of that race, with seven events complete, the Ferrari drivers had won two races apiece, Hamilton and Massa were tied on 38 points, with Raikkonen close behind on 35. The leader? Robert Kubica, with 42 points...

Although Raikkonen set fastest lap in 10 grands prix in 2008, there were no further wins. None, in fact, until Spa in 2009, by which time Ferrari had elected to pay him off and employ Alonso instead.

It's here the Raikkonen apologists point out that the 2009 Ferrari was a dog - that much is true - and that, with development, it "suited his driving style more". This is a supremely nebulous claim and one that cuts against another of the cherished touchstones of the Kimi massive, the belief that he is "great at developing a car".

Ferrari's failure to get a grip on the '09 regs promptly or to spot the double-diffuser loophole can't be attributed to Raikkonen, but the fact is that McLaren and Red Bull, among the other teams caught out by the new rules, and with similar engineering resources to Ferrari, both got back up to speed quicker.

If Kimi's development input was so valuable, why usher him out of the door? Yes, Ferrari is a team with a gilded track record in self-destructive internal politics, but if he had been doing a conspicuously brilliant job it would have been difficult to build a case for buying out his contract.

Over the course of two subsequent years in the World Rally Championship, the first lubricated by Red Bull backing, Kimi's air of disengagement won him few friends or allies. On the face of it, Kimi seemed the perfect fit for a segment of motor racing in which bravery, commitment and flamboyant car control underpin the spectacle.

But above all, rallying is a sport that demands focus, preparation, and the ability to work long hours. It is a sport of 4am starts. Time and again, the Citroen team bus would be idling outside the hotel long before the crack of dawn, Sebastiens Loeb and Ogier up and ready to get at 'em within, while Kimi's benighted co-driver Kaj Lindstrom was knocking on doors trying to roust his man.

During their time together, Lindstrom would even resort to stashing energy bars in various recesses within the car in case Kimi required a carbohydrate wake-up call while on the road.

Few would have expected Raikkonen to be immediately competitive with Loeb and Ogier, one already a titan of the scene, the other a hotly tipped newcomer. But to score a best result of fifth, and scrape into the top 10 on a handful of other occasions, while Ogier was taking podium finishes in an identical car simply wasn't good enough.

Lindstrom - co-driver to the great Tommi Makinen amongst others - would later say that Kimi had the driving talent to be as quick as Loeb and Ogier, if only he put more effort into preparation such as finessing his pace notes.

But this very necessary work ethic was sadly lacking; Raikkonen even failed to turn up at Rally Australia in 2011 because it was "a long way", an offence for which his team was docked its world championship points. Throughout that season he had become increasingly distant, barely troubling the top 10, often trailing in alongside the likes of the personable but steady Dutch privateer Dennis Kuipers. Hardly the stuff of legend.

Neither did he engage with the other niceties of the WRC, for instance the tradition - not enshrined within the regulations, admittedly - for drivers to pull up post-stage to speak to TV and radio crews. It became an open joke that more often than not, Raikkonen would cruise past without stopping.

"Are we going to get a word with Kimi? Heh, heh - no..."

Loeb did it. Ogier did it. Ken Block did it. Hell, even Kuipers would pause to upload his thoughts to the viewers and listeners out there. In that era, the WRC was struggling for eyeballs, and the prudent drivers saw the inherent value in connecting with the fanbase.

Raikkonen departed the WRC unlamented, and then, via a brief and unproductive dalliance with NASCAR, returned to Formula 1 with Lotus in 2012. Although 'Team Enstone' was in financial difficulties it provided him with a broadly competitive car, enough to win the chaotic Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but it's difficult to judge from the outside whether he got the best out of the E20 chassis because his team-mate - Romain Grosjean - notably under-performed during the year.

In 2013 Kimi won the first race of the season, in Australia, but his relationship with the team soured over money. By the second half of the year Lotus had honed the E21 into arguably the second-quickest car in F1, and was entrenched in a battle for second place in the constructors' championship - important on account of the difference between second, third and fourth being measured in millions of dollars. This was the cash-strapped team's lifeline, vital to its survival.

Raikkonen remains an enigma, albeit one considerably less fascinating than he used to be. The fact is he's continually second-best to Vettel

Grosjean had got his head together over the off-season and was doing his bit - in fact, he was among the principal challengers to Sebastian Vettel's dominance in the closing races.

Raikkonen, who wasn't paid until the end of the season in 2012, and was yet to receive any payment in '13, sulked, got into an expletive-laden radio spat with senior engineer Alan Permane in India after being asked to move over for Grosjean, turned up late in Abu Dhabi (attending an autograph session wearing headphones the whole time), and then quit the team (ostensibly to have back surgery, but having already said openly that he would boycott races unless he was paid) with two rounds still to go.

Yes, he was owed a considerable amount of money, but the team was behind on payroll, too. The people who screwed his car together and operated it to the best of their abilities continued to work all the hours necessary - and they had mortgages to pay. In flouncing off before season's end, Raikkonen - not short of a bob or two - put all that in jeopardy just to make a point.

No wonder there are few in that team with good words to say about their former superstar driver.

As to his makeweight performances for Ferrari ever since, it's all there in the data and the results. The team has been largely indifferent during the hybrid era, and yet Vettel won three grands prix in 2015, arguably outperforming his machinery, and that pattern has continued as the Scuderia enjoys a resurgence in 2017.

Vettel won from second on the grid in Australia this year, demonstrating the SF70H's competitiveness, while Raikkonen started and finished fourth. He was fifth in Bahrain, fourth in Canada and fifth in Austria, all races in which he crossed the line more than one position behind his team-mate.

Granted Raikkonen was eliminated in Spain and Azerbaijan by problems not of his own making, but his own boss, Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne, recently described him as a "laggard". Pole position in Monaco remains his most impressive achievement, but Ferrari didn't have enough faith in his ability to string together a championship challenge, so it engineered a positional swap to gift Vettel the win.

Kimi was on for pole in Hungary, too, but he squandered the opportunity. He claims that a mistake at the chicane on his best lap was what cost him pole, and indeed he dropped 0.233s in the second sector, but until that point he had been 0.102s up on his team-mate. Pole was still within reach, but instead he shipped a further 0.159s in sector three.

If Kimi genuinely wants to win the world championship again, he needs to outqualify Sebastian more often, remain ahead of him during the race, and thereby properly challenge Ferrari's policy of giving his team-mate priority. And he should have been doing this since the Australian Grand Prix.

Raikkonen remains an enigma, albeit one considerably less fascinating than he used to be. The bitten nails and frosty demeanour point to inner demons that belie the 'Iceman' monicker, as does his peculiarly enraged squawkings during situations one wouldn't even described as pressured ("Steering wheel! Steering wheel!").

There will still be those who say that with a car that suits his driving style Raikkonen will flourish, and/or that he remains a great development driver. These excuses are now polished and worn smooth with the passage of time and frequent use, and are no more true for being oft-repeated.

The fact is that he's continually second best to a driver - Vettel - who realises the importance of underpinning talent with industry, who calls additional meetings with engineers to go over the data again and again, seeking improvements.

Ferrari usually announces its driver line-up for the following year at Monza, and the noises from Maranello point to another season of staid conservatism. Promising youngsters Antonio Giovinazzi and Charles Leclerc are likely to be parked elsewhere while the team management dithers.

Surely it's time for Kimi Raikkonen to recognise that he's achieved all he's going to achieve in F1, and make way for someone else - someone, dare we say it, more exciting? I'd say he should quit while he's ahead, but that ship sailed long ago.