Kimi Raikkonen hit back at questions about his motivation ahead of this weekend’s British Grand Prix, saying that he would not be racing in Formula 1 if he didn’t want to be.
Raikkonen’s contract with Ferrari expires at the end of 2015, but the Italian team has an option on the Finn’s services for next season.
Recent reports in Italy suggest that Valtteri Bottas is being lined up as a possible replacement for Raikkonen, whilst Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo have also been linked with the seat.
Speaking to NBCSN at Silverstone, Raikkonen said that he was unfazed by questions about his motivation and claimed that they have been a recurring theme throughout his career.
“They’ve questioned it for I think 12, 13 years now, so keep doing it, I don’t mind,” Raikkonen said.
“They can write what they want. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be here, if I wouldn’t want to do well and do racing. I could stay home, I suppose.”
Raikkonen has already scored 17 more points in the first eight races of the 2015 season than he did in the entirety of 2014, but some of his performances have been brought into question.
The Finn has struggled to match teammate Sebastian Vettel for pace, but he feels that a few more things need to fall into place before he can unlock his full potential with the Ferrari SF15-T car.
“I choose to be here, I want to do well and obviously sometimes you have hard times,” Raikkonen said. “We’re in fourth place in the championship, second as a team.
“Obviously it hasn’t been exactly as we wanted so far this year, but we have all of the tools. We just have to put things together and clean up certain things and I’m sure we’ll get the result we deserve.”
