Full Throttle

Six events into the current F1 season Kimi Raikkonen has given up, quit. Put a gun to the head of his Championship hopes and pulled the trigger.

Kimi Raikkonen has ruled out winning the Formula One championship this season and may have set the stage for his depature from McLaren at the end of the year.

“The title battle will be fought between Ferrari and Renault because they always get to the end of the races and they are always fighting for victory and podiums,” Raikkonen tells Gazzetta dello Sport following a fifth place finish in Spain.

Geesh… Kimi must be taking notes from NASCAR’s eternal crepehanger Mark Martin. You should note the highlighted section, which may be behind this bit of pessimism and created because Prancing Horses are dancing in Kimi’s head.

And Kimi’s not alone, managing director Martin Whitmarsh has thrown in the towel as well. “Probably at the moment we shouldn’t be focusing on the championship,” Whitmarsh told Reuters. “We should be focusing on making our car go quicker and winning some races.” Well OK, so you suck. But there are 12 events left and to go public with such a caviler attitude seems counter-productive me. Then again, I don’t have hundreds of millions of Euros invested in the Woking-outfit.

Anyway, on the flipside of this is DC, who claims he can not only compete, but win for Red Bull.