'Nothing to be sad about', says Raikkonen ahead of F1 exit

Raikkonen announced his retirement from F1 at the start of September, bringing an end to an illustrious career that spanned over 20 years.

He attended Alfa Romeo’s factory in Hinwill on Friday as the team put on a farewell party for him.

“There’s not much to tell,” Raikkonen said ahead of this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. “It was nice to see all the people for the last time I go there, so I went with the family and stayed there for a while.

“Saw all the people, it was quite a bit of stuff for them to do but it was nice. It doesn’t matter how it would look, it was beautiful as it looked but I think the feeling was more important. It was good.”

The 2007 champion gave a typical Kimi-like response when asked if he was ‘emotional’ about leaving the sport at the end of the year.

“I don’t know why you’d get emotional about it, I’m really looking forward to it,” he added.

“I’m happy that it’s soon over, there’s nothing sad, nothing bad about it. I think it’s a good thing.”

Raikkonen admitted that his retirement won’t impact how he approaches the final two races of the season in Jeddah and Abu Dhabi.

“Obviously, as in any other race, we try to do as well as we can,” Raikkonen explained.

“Obviously, it’s a new track and we’ll see what happens, but we’ll do our normal stuff, as always, and hopefully we get some decent results at the end of it. And have some fun on the way.”

Fernando Alonso - who fought Raikkonen for the 2005 and 2007 titles before spending a season together as teammates in 2014 with Ferrari - praised the Finn for being “outstanding” for F1.

“Kimi will be missed in F1, I like him a lot - the way he in his own way loves the sport and has been for so many years in F1,” Alonso said. 

“I think he’s very honest always which I really like that part of Kimi and I think outside he’s maybe his mask of being cold and iceman, there is a very good person inside that you meet from time to time outside the circuits. 

“We meet in airports, restaurants, places, that you are not in this paddock environment and Kimi is a different person. As I said, he has been outstanding for F1 and he will be missed because he has his own character and he was different.”