Formula One / Ralph Ellis / 22 December 2011 / 1

Kimi Raikkonen returns to Formula 1 after a few very average seasons in Nascar and the World Rally Championship, but could the new (old) guy on the block have any insights to give bettors an edge in 2012? Ralph Ellis thinks so...

Sometimes in life you have to eat humble pie. It doesn't taste all that good, but the best thing is to swallow it down quickly with a glass of water and get on with life! And that's what Kimi Raikkonen is having to do at the moment as he prepares to return to Formula One next season with Lotus Renault.

The flying Finn walked away from the Grand Prix scene in 2009 because after a miserable season with Ferrari he couldn't get the money, or the car, he wanted to stay. World champion two years earlier, Raikkonen didn't understand quite how the recession was about to hit the sport. While the newly created Brawn team were able to pay comparative buttons to sign Jenson Button, he turned down opportunities at McLaren and Mercedes, went off to rallying and to NASCAR with results that were spectacularly underwhelming.

Two years on he's back, and talking up his chances of making an impact.

"It feels like coming home," he says of his first few days based at the factory in Enstone, just north of Oxford, where some 500 people are employed. And he reckons the only big difference he'll have to deal with is getting used to Pirelli tyres instead of the Bridgestones which were in use when he was last on the grid.

You can take all that with a pinch of salt. Raikkonen is priced at anywhere between [60.0] and [140.0] for next year's Drivers' Championship for the very good reason that his car will be far less competitive than any of those he turned down two seasons ago. But one thing he said as his new team tried to generate some publicity did ring some alarm bells to offer a bet for next year - "the technical regulations apply to a lot of areas and as a result the cars will be significantly different. The order could be shaken up."

That sounds like a signal to be brave and lay Sebastian Vettel who is a ridiculously short [2.52] favourite for the title. Blimey. There were several times last season when the German was a longer price to win a race!

Red Bull's dominance was so strong last year that it was well documented how most of the major teams gave up developing their 2011 cars half way through the season to put all their resources into 2012. The McLarens have already promised their new car will be ready to be unveiled on February 1, and the likes of Ferrari will be good to go at the same time. We don't know if any of them have come up with a significant design edge, but it's always possible.

Raikkonen will remember that one of the teams he snubbed in 2009 was Toyota, who had just gone bust and were being recreated by Ross Brawn. If he'd not been demanding the big bucks he'd have got a car with the "double diffuser" which put Button way in front that season before everybody else caught up.

As the New Year beckons it's worth remembering that all the significant changes in Formula One are happening behind the scenes, and only a few people in the garages know what they are. However good a driver Vettel is - and he's already established himself as one of the best ever - there's no way you can justify making him such a short favourite right now.

Five things you might not know about Pirelli
1. Engineer Giovanni Battista Pirelli was just 23 years old when he started the business in Milan in 1872, with the aim of producing "articles in elastic rubber". It was 18 years later that they produced bicycle tyres for the first time.

2. In the early 20th century the company was as famous for developing underwater cables as it was for rubber. Big early projects were a telegraph cable under the red sea and another to connect the Balearic Islands to mainland Spain

3. The company's prestige headquarters in Milan, a 125 metres tall skyscraper designed by Gio Ponti, which took five years to build and were opened in 1960. However the building was uneconomic and sold to the local government 18 years later.

4. The Pirelli calendar began as a marketing ploy in 1964 - Robert Freeman took the first photos in Majorca. It was never sold commercially but given as a gift to major clients - between 1975 and 1984 it wasn't produced because of the economic downturn.

5. The main sponsor of Inter Milan since 1995, Pirelli also backs English League Two side Burton Albion by sponsoring their stadium - which is next door to the company's main UK tyre factory.

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1. Anonymous | 04 March 2012

   Cheers for the 6/4 on Vettel pal.

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