When Kimi Raikkonen almost made an F1 Team broke

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Published 2023-11-29

Kimi Raikkonen is one of the most popular drivers to ever race in F1. Winning a world championship, and proving at multiple teams why he was one of the very best on the grid. Kimi Raikkonen's F1 return in 2012 was welcomed by F1 fans, and his new challenge at Lotus was under way. With this, Kimi had an added bonus in his contract, earning €50,000 for every point he scored. Kimi managed to score 390 points, meaning Lotus were left with a bonus bill of €19,500,000 owed to Kimi Raikkonen. This is how Lotus F1 Team fell into financial disarray, and were even featured on a UK debt collector TV show. Enjoy!

#F1 #KimiRaikkonen

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Lotus F1 Team
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Channel 5 / Can't Pay? We'll Take it away
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All Comments (21)

@ragnar400o 7 months ago

Oh come on, the season only ended a few days ago. It's a bit early for the 'Kimi bankrupted Lotus' content 😂
@volatilepz 7 months ago

I think we're missing the most important bit of this whole saga: Raikkonen decided not to collect the debt he was owed to save the jobs of the employees.
@aventusV33 7 months ago

Here we go 😂 name a better pairing than the winter break and Kimi's Lotus story
@crystalracing4794 7 months ago

Kimi skipped F2 (F3000) and F3. That's how insanely talented he really was.
@NavF1 7 months ago

Time for the "Kimi bankrupting Lotus", "Rosberg vs LH", and "Alonso 2012" off-season video spams 😂😂
@jamsbong 7 months ago

Kimi done so well with lotus first season. He scored points on every single race except for China where he ran out of tires.
@kurvin2719 7 months ago

My uncle told me about this, Kimi was his favourite driver and I love hearing this story over and over again
@DonLee1980 7 months ago

helping the team score 390 points over 2 years, and was owed 19.5 million? that's a no brainer good deal for the team. I mean, how much more prize money did Kimi bring to the team?
@andrewbrinkworth1420 7 months ago

I have heard this story a thousand times and love it every time
@ciaronsmith4995 7 months ago

People need to stop spinning this as if Kimi "hurt the team". If Lotus were clueless as to the calibre of driver they signed, that's their fault. Kimi did his job. Brilliantly. Arguably F1's finest driver in late 2012 and early 2013. Lotus failed to do their job.
@sdx3918 7 months ago

Was this the first time where a team went broke because of being too fast? Usually it's the opposite..
@sophisticateddenial6510 7 months ago

Bwoah, he was a businessman doing business 😎
@Tracertme 7 months ago

This was a great period with Kimi in the team…..❤
@Loose89 7 months ago

One thing to note with their best result at Spa in 2015, Mercedes remotely changed Grosjeans PU mode to a setting which wasn't accessible to the non-factory teams to put pressure on Vettel in the race. They weren't ever that competitive before or after that race. Probably something to do a video on down the road at some point.
@chsinger96 7 months ago

Is the audio much quieter than usual in this video or am I tripping?🤨
@sakhesengwayo 7 months ago

Lotus is a great team. I miss it on the grid.
@douweanne 7 months ago

Such a cool f1 story
@yudhabagaskara98 7 months ago

bwoah i think his back pain is well-timed though
@fillusrahim-xy9ib 7 months ago

A bit of history is refreshing 👍
@DrElhan 7 months ago

I swear the word Lotus is spiraling through my brain after the first 2 minutes of this video