Ferrari Will Be Forced To Re-Sign Kimi Raikkonen, by Kunal Shah

In the last month, three of Ferrari's strongest prospects to replace Kimi Raikkonen all had their extended contracts with Red Bull Racing confirmed. Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo will be locked with Red Bull Racing till end of 2018 whereas Carlos Sainz Jr. has got a one year extension with Red Bull Racing's sister team, Toro Rosso. This is exactly why I keep saying that Red Bull Racing is Ferrari's Junior Driver Program! They hired Sebastian Vettel from Red Bull Racing a couple of seasons ago.

What If Lewis Hamilton Raced For Red Bull Racing?

Is Kimi Raikkonen long for this Ferrari earth?
Photo: Octane Photography

Ferrari's decision to wait on Kimi Raikkonen might just backfire. They've issued statements that Raikkonen needs to prove that he deserves a seat at Ferrari and that they aren't in a hurry to decide their driver line-up for 2017. Has Ferrari's patience cost them a shot at signing the sport's best racing talent? I would think so.

Ferrari Should've Signed Max Verstappen

Kimi Raikkonen 2.0 hasn't been the same since he moved to Ferrari. The former World Champion has rarely matched his illustrious team-mates and I will use a phrase that's been overused to describe the Finn - 'a shadow of his former self'. Alain Prost's suggestion to Ferrari to stick with Raikkonen for 2017 to maintain stability might hold some might, but it isn't something I would subscribe to if I were Ferrari.

Flagging officials

The 2014 Chinese Grand Prix wasn't quite a thriller, but it had a bit a fun added after the act.

It turns out that the final two laps of proceedings didn't actually happen, despite all appearances. Instead the result was declared after 54 tours of the scheduled and completed 56.

Why? Well no it wasn't a result of us somehow suffering a collective hallucination. Instead, you may recall that on the final lap Lewis Hamilton said something on the team radio - replicated on the world TV feed - about a chequered flag. Many assumed simply that he'd mis-counted and expected the flag a lap early. But no, it wasn't Lewis that had mis-counted; he had been shown the flag a lap early.

How could such a thing happen? Especially in this age of precise computerised timing? Turns out - to borrow the catchphrase of a notorious UK newspaper columnist - you couldn't make it up. Sky has reported that 'It's understood that the mistake happened when the clerk of the course unfurled the flag to test it.' Oh dear.

Kamui Kobayashi - the one to miss out
Photo: Octane Photography

And as it turned out the effect of this was doubled, as under Article 43.2 of F1's sporting regulations: 'Should for any reason the end-of-race signal be given before the leading car completes the scheduled number of laps, or the prescribed time has been completed, the race will be deemed to have finished when the leading car last crossed the line before the signal was given.' So, results have been taken from the lap before the clerk of the course committed the goof up.

All can thank their lucky stars that there wasn't more of a consequence from this; imagine if Daniel Ricciardo had indeed passed Fernando Alonso on the last lap, or if Lewis Hamilton had broken down...