Analysis: Is Ferrari right to keep Raikkonen?

A typically short statement said simply: "Scuderia Ferrari announces that it has renewed its technical and racing agreement with Kimi Raikkonen.

"The driver line-up for the 2017 racing season will still consist of the Finnish driver and Sebastian Vettel."

No more details have been forthcoming, but we can probably assume that Raikkonen's deal is just for one more season, in the course of which he will pass his 38th birthday.

The timing is a little unexpected, given that Ferrari announcements often come around Monza time, and we have not even reached the halfway mark of the season.

You could argue that keeping Raikkonen on his toes for the next few months might have extracted a little more performance from him, but the alternative view is that an early commitment and show of faith from Maranello will allow him to perform at his best.

To be fair to Raikkonen, this has been his best season since he returned to Ferrari in 2014, on the back of two impressive point-gathering years at Lotus.

To date he has scored 96 points in 2016, exactly the same as Vettel, although the German has had less luck with reliability. He's been on the podium four times, and put in some charging performances, notably when finishing right behind Max Verstappen in both Spain and Austria.

But has he really made the most out of the car, and done enough to stay on? There have been some disappointing qualifying performances, while some would argue that he should have found a way past Verstappen in Barcelona.

Raikkonen has a lot of devoted fans around the world, but nevertheless there's been a widespread feeling both in the paddock and among the public that his days as a Ferrari driver were numbered, and it was time for a change.

Indeed, today's news was greeted with a certain lack of enthusiasm on social media.

The key to it is what Maurizio Arrivabene has long been saying whenever the subject of Raikkonen 's future came up: who is available who would do a better job? And availability is the key.

Lack of options

Of course there is a long list of drivers who might appeal to Ferrari, but most of the big names are signed up elsewhere.

Red Bull has long had Daniel Ricciardo tied up into the future, and the background to the decision in May to switch Verstappen from STR to RBR was to keep him in the camp for at least another two seasons.

A couple of weeks ago it was confirmed that Carlos Sainz, whose face would fit at Ferrari, would be staying at Toro Rosso.

Valtteri Bottas is under option to Williams, and Sergio Perez, who has been linked with Ferrari for the past few weeks, has an ongoing deal with Force India.

As we've seen, anything can happen in F1, but Ferrari has made it clear that is is not in the business of spending money on buying drivers out of contracts with other teams. Better to use those funds on making the car go faster.

Two guys who would have been accessible are Haas drivers Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez. It's no secret that the former joined the US-owned team with an eye on a possible Ferrari future - but despite doing a great job this year, and regularly making the points, he has been overlooked, at least for now.

The other key factor in Ferrari's timing is undoubtedly that when it makes a change, it wants it to be the right one, for the long term.

The team doesn't want to take Grosjean or anyone else for a year if it believes that a better option is on the horizon for 2018, although at the moment it's hard to see who that might be. Raikkonen can handily bridge that gap with the minimum of fuss.

Stability

Clearly Ferrari has also decided that it wants stability as it heads into a season that will see major changes to the regulations. In addition the Vettel/Raikkonen partnership is low maintenance, and there's nothing to rock the German's boat.

Vettel knows from his Red Bull days how tough life can be if you have a fractious relationship with your teammate, as was the case with Mark Webber.

He also took a beating on track from Ricciardo in 2015, and understandably he's more than happy to have a teammate who has rarely threatened him on overall pace.

Some may criticise Ferrari for its focus on Vettel, but it's worth pointing out that Mercedes has provided a timely case study of how tricky it can be to manage the interests of two drivers who do not get on, and are gunning for the championship.

The bottom line is that having been given one more chance, it's now up to Raikkonen to prove that he deserves it.