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Saturday, December 25, 2010

'The Iceman' due to announce plans soon

Kimi Raikkonen is understood to be announcing his future plans in the near future.

The Finn, who competed 12 in this year’s 13 WRC rounds with the Citroen Junior Team, is due to be resigning for the French outfit in the coming weeks.

Details of his 2011 campaign are being kept secret; with Red Bull only saying that they are still in negotiations with him.

A source close to Citroen said: "We expect Kimi to be here again next year. He has talked to a few people about a few things, but this is where he's going to be. The agreement, we're told, is made."

Raikkonen has been the centre of a storm of rumours about his future, with Renault F1 rumouring that he was returning with them. Raikkonen later stated that he was ‘never seriously considering driving for Renault’ and that he would ‘assure you 100% that I will not be driving for them in 2011’.

Within rallying, he was believed to be moving to Ford, but nothing came of this. MINI was another name mentioned, but with MINI only competing in select rounds next year, and with Kimi’s experience level not being suited to all the development needed, this rumour has somewhat frozen.

Recently, however, he has been linked to the Monster WRT, partnering Ken Block. Block described Raikkonen as ‘a dream team-mate’, but with both his current sponsor Red Bull and Monster both being energy drinks companies, this has gone somewhat stale.

Another idea that was circulated was of Raikkonen taking a sabbatical from driving for 2011, but this was dismissed.

Citroen Racing boss Oliver Quesnel is understood to be keen on retaining the ‘Iceman’ in the team, after some strong showings in the latter half of the season.

Should Raikkonen re-sign for Citroen, he would probably get his first test in the team’s new challenger, the DS3 WRC, in early to mid January.

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