Brundle: Raikkonen is bluffing Red Bull

Former racer turned Sky Sports F1 commentator Martin Brundle has said he reckons Kimi Raikkonen does want to leave Lotus and that talk negotiations with Red Bull have ceased are all part of an elaborate bluff.

Raikkonen's manager, Steve Robertson, said earlier this week that the Finn was now out of the running to join Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull, although he does have options for 2014, namely his current team Lotus of course, as well as possibly Ferrari.

Brundle, though, isn't convinced that the 'ice-man' is out of the picture with the current world champions, and with the Milton-Keynes-based team having now backtracked and said there will be no driver announcement this weekend at Spa, Daniel Ricciardo's promotion to replace Mark Webber is no longer as certain as perhaps thought a few days ago...

"I think there is a lot of bluffing going on and we will have to wait and see what the teams do," Brundle told Sky Sports News. "There is certainly some negotiations going on and Kimi might well spring from the Lotus team.

"To me there are four drivers out there that you would absolutely have at the top of your list - Raikkonen has now joined that list along with Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel. If you get two of them in the same team it would be amazingly competitive, but would it work with two bulls in the same field effectively?

"So, we wait with great interest to see who can afford to put two drivers like that in the same team and who can handle the pressure of doing that.

"Does Raikkonen really want to leave Lotus? You have to assume he does as he is scouting around."