How Kimi Raikkonen Almost Broke Lotus with His Contract

Credit: Antigorky via Wikimedia Commons,(CROPPED) CC BY-SA 3.0

F1 contracts are usually written to protect teams as much as they reward drivers, but in 2012, Lotus F1 team found out the hard way what happens when performance-based bonuses go too far.

It was Kimi Raikkonen, already F1 champion, a great competitor who already shown in the past what he was capable of.

What was meant to be a clever incentive in his contract nearly pushed the team to financial collapse.

The Contract That Backfired

When Raikkonen returned to F1 after two years in rallying, Lotus saw him as both a gamble and an opportunity.

To entice the Finn, who had already built a reputation as a world-class driver, they offered him a base salary with a unique bonus clause: €50,000 for every championship point he scored.

On paper, it seemed safe enough for Lotus, they did not expect to be competitive, and few believed Raikkonen would consistently trouble the front-runners.

But that proved them wrong, right? In 2012, Raikkonen first season back, he scored 207 points and finished third in the championship, only behind Vettel who won the title and Fernando Alonso second.

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By the end of 2013, after another strong year where he added 183 points to his tally, he accumulated 390 points, triggering around €19.5 million in payments.

Lotus did not expected such success, and the weight of those bonuses came at a time when the team was already financially stretched.

By 2014, reports surfaced that Lotus had piled up £114 million in debt, and among the unpaid bills were the bonuses still owed by Raikkonen himself.

The Finn never one mince words, made it clear he was racing without being paid what he was due, during 2013, he bluntly told reporters that money problems were one of the main reasons for his decision to leave the team.

By the end of that year, Kimi Raikkonen was on his way back to Ferrari while Lotus were left counting the cost of what might be the most expensive contract clause in F1 history.

Was He Close to a Title?

Raikkonen’s time with Lotus might not have delivered a championship, but it bring him remarkably close in 2012, he finished third overall, he even scored a famous win at the Abu Dhabi GP where his now legendary radio message, ‘leave me alone, I know what am doing’, – cemented his cult hero status.

In 2013, he began the year in style by winning the opening race in Australia. But as the season wore on, financial tensions inside the team and a back injury that required surgery forced him to miss the final two races. He still managed fifth in the championship, but the cracks in his relationship with Lotus were already beyond repair.

Kimi’s F1 Journey Beyond Lotus

The Lotus saga was just one chapter in Räikkönen’s long and colorful Formula 1 career. Before joining Lotus, he had already built a reputation as one of the fastest drivers of his generation.

McLaren years (2002–2006): Raikkonen replaced fellow Finn Mika Hakkinen at McLaren, he had an amazing year with Sauber in 2001, and from the start he was blisteringly quick. His best chance to win the title at McLaren was came in 2005, but a string of reliability issues cost him dearly. Despite winning 7 races that season he lost the title to Fernando Alonso, for many fans, he was the moral champion of that year.

Ferrari years (2007–2009): In 2007, he replaced another champion but this time at Scuderia Ferrari, Michael Schumacher. He won the title in 2007 after joining the team, beating both Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton in the final race of the season, in one of the closest finishes in F1 history.

Rally and NASCAR (2010–2011): Raikkonen wanted to explore something more, and away from F1 in 2010, he turned to rallying. He also made a brief foray into NASCAR. Though he never achieved the same success outside F1.

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Lotus comeback (2012–2013): His return with Lotus was supposed to be low-key, but instead, it delivered podiums, wins, and a financial nightmare for the team. For fans, it was a joy to watch him fight at the front again.

Ferrari return and beyond (2014–2018): Raikkonen returned to Ferrari in 2014. While he never won another title, he remained a consistent points scorer and added one last victory at the 2018 US Grand Prix, ending a drought of 113 races.

Final years with Alfa Romeo (2019–2021): Kimi wound down his F1 career with Alfa Romeo, bringing experience and a no-nonsense attitude to a smaller team. By the time he retired at the end of 2021, he had started more Grands Prix than any driver in history.

What can we say more?

The Lotus contract remains one of the strangest stories in F1’s modern era, he nearly bankrupted a team, but for Raikkonen, it was about to show that he still got it, and was able to fight at the front.

Whether he was winning a title with Ferrari, nearly bankrupting Lotus, or simply telling his engineers to leave him alone, Raikkonen carved out a unique legacy as one of the sport’s most iconic unfiltered characters.

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