Raikkonen reflects on Ferrari career ahead of farewell race

Kimi Raikkonen has reflected on his career with Ferrari ahead of his final race with the Prancing Horse at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Yas Marina on Sunday, and revealed that he is not sad about leaving the team as he will remain friends with those behind the scenes.

During the season, it was announced that Raikkonen would be leaving the team to head back to Sauber, with Charles Leclerc being promoted as his replacement.

However, as he has actually left Ferrari and returned previously, he insists there is not much sadness.

"I don’t know," Raikkonen responded when asked what he would miss most about Ferrari.

"Obviously I had this leaving them once already so it’s not a new thing. I’m not sad because I don’t see why we need to be sad. We will stay as friends. We’re going to see a lot of us anyhow in the paddock so not an awful lot changes.

"We’ll both go for new things and I think it’s exciting but we’ve had good times with the team, great people. We’ve had some difficult times, but that’s part of business and I think that’s how it should go: sometimes it needs to be a bit hard."

When you can instantly recognise a person from their headwear #Kimi7 #ForzaFerrari pic.twitter.com/BBD5YzRgPL — Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) November 16, 2018

The Finn does appreciate having won the world championship with the team, however, and hopes they can part on happy terms.

No, obviously I won the championship with them, as a driver," he continued in the press conference for the Abu Dhabi GP.

"We twice won the team (championship) so I’m very happy to be part of it because there’s not many people who have done it. We will happily go different ways. We’re not that far away from each other and we will keep doing what we do."

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