Daily Times

LONDON: Monaco’s 20-year-old rookie Charles Leclerc will replace Formula One veteran Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari next season in a seat swap with the Finnish 2007 world champion, who moves to Sauber. The moves had been widely expected and were announced by both teams on Tuesday. Leclerc, a Ferrari protege who has been long tipped for promotion to the sport’s oldest and most successful team, made his debut with Sauber this season after winning last year’s Formula Two title. He will now partner four times world champion and title contender Sebastian Vettel. “Scuderia Ferrari announces that, at the end of the 2018 season, Kimi Raikkonen will step down from his current role,” said Ferrari. “As a world champion for Scuderia Ferrari, he will always be part of the team’s history and family. We thank Kimi for all of this and wish him and his family a prosperous future.” Ferrari are Formula One’s most glamorous team and Leclerc will be one of the youngest and least experienced drivers to race for them. Raikkonen, 38, posted a message on Instagram announcing he would be rejoining Sauber – a team with Ferrari engines and Alfa Romeo sponsorship — on a two-year deal. The Finn first drove for them in 2001, before moving to McLaren and then on to Ferrari, where he won a title that remains the team’s most recent. “Guess who’s back?! Next two years with @sauberf1team ahead! Feels extremely good to go back where it all began!” he told his 974,000 followers. Sauber said the move, which keeps three world champions on the starting grid next season after Spaniard Fernando Alonso’s departure from the sport, represented “an important pillar of our project”.

Published in Daily Times, September 12^th 2018.