fHR means KR: That time Kimi Räikkönen almost bankrupt Lotus Renault
Human Resources officers or HR officers usually deal with the ever-so complicated relationship between an employer and their employees. Their scope of responsibilities lies beyond contracts and bonuses, they also have to foster employees’ well-being and welfare as their negotiating representative. Of course, in the fancy world of Formula 1, the world’s premier class of motorsport, HR work can and has, at times, become sour. One of the notable incidents include the 1982 FISA-FOCA ‘cold war’ regarding the unequal spread of the field, as well as commercial remuneration.
In the modern times, better rules and regulations entail less HR problems between the teams and the FIA, F1’s governing body. However, one case stands out as it involves one of the most storied drivers of his time and a team that severely underestimated him. This is the story of Kimi Räikkönen and Lotus-Renault.
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Backstory
At the time of his last race before joining Lotus, Kimi Räikkönen was regarded as one of the quickest drivers in Formula 1. He won the 2007 World Championship against the two McLarens of the rookie Lewis Hamilton and the newly-crowned two-time champion Fernando Alonso, and had previously battled car-to-car with Michael Schumacher, Juan Pablo Montoya, and David Coulthard, some of the best Grand Prix racers of their time.
Räikkönen was allegedly made redundant at Scuderia Ferrari at the end of the 2009 season to make way for Alonso, so he took a few years of to go rallying in the World Rallying Championship, but without any concrete success. In November 2011, Lotus-Renault announced that he would make a return to Formula One with them for the 2012 and 2013 seasons. This is, as one might say, the start of a legendary story.
The contract
Räikkönen’s contract promised him more than the base salary of 3.5 million dollars per year, equating to 7 million for the two seasons. But, unbeknownst to the public at that time, Lotus’ boss Gérard Lopéz did not anticipate great success from Räikkönen, his teammate Romain Grosjean, and the rest of the team. Expecting a low-scoring, low-finishing season for the Enstone team, Lopéz had promised to pay Räikkönen 50,000 dollars for each point he scored. If Kimi won a race for Lotus-Renault and scored 25 points, he would win more than a million dollars.
What happened?
To cut the long story short, during his two seasons with Lotus-Renault, Räikkönen won two races, stepped foot onto the podium thirteen times, finished both seasons in the top five, and scoring 390 points for the team. This means that, apart from his base salary of 7 million dollars, Lotus-Renault was obliged to remunerate him almost 20 million dollars as a bonus.
A long dispute ensued and the relationship between both parties deteriorated, with Räikkönen threatening to not race until he was remunerated. In the end, a compromised was reached, and Räikkönen returned to Ferrari for the 2014 season.
Aftermath
This saga reflected a poor image on Lotus-Renault’s HR capability. Promising an established driver and a World Champion such a extravagant financial incentive, only to then fail to pay him accordingly was not only embarrassing, but also hurted the team financially in the long run.
In the immediate season after Räikkönen left, Lotus-Renault dropped from the fourth-best to the fourth-worst, scoring only three times that year. The team did improve in the 2015 season, scoring a podium in Belgium and finished 6th in the constructor’s standings. However, the team was rebranded into Renault in 2015 and has not returned to the top since.
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