The stories keep changing with Raikkonen, Button

You know, the ink is barely dry on the paper on which the news is printed when the stories start changing.

Curiosity No. 1.

Kimi Raikkonen holds a press conference to say that he doesn’t have a deal with anybody for 2010 and will be taking a year off. “Maybe I’ll never be back in Formula 1,” he says.

So that’s the story that goes out on the wire services and is heard on radio and TV and on web sites and in the newspapers.

A little while later, Raikkonen runs into a reporter on the street who wasn’t at the press conference.

“So I hear you’re taking a sabbatical,” the reporter says to the driver who had just told the world he wasn’t going to drive for anybody in F1 in 2010.

“Well,’ says Raikkonen, “we’re actually still talking to a few people. You never know. I might hear a good offer.”

And his manager, in the meantime, is telling anybody who will listen that if Mercedes were to make an offer for Kimi to drive for Brawn GP next year (or Mercedes GP, whatever), well – hell – he’d sure have to consider it, right?

So is he in for oh-ten, or out?

Curiosity No. 2.

Jenson Button said that when Brawn GP rose from the ashes of Honda, there wasn’t a lot of money around so he took a pay cut to stay with the team.

Now he says he took a pay cut to sign with McLaren.

He sure doesn’t seem to place much value on himself, does he?

And remember when he said he was keen to continue with Brawn?

And then he couldn’t wait to get out?

What’s that all about?

 

Comments

[Bill Taylor]

Button's true value will quickly become apparent next year, when he's matched against Hamilton in a similar car. Seeing them go head to head could be the most interesting part of the season.

[John Frewen-Lord]

The big news this weekend is that Button was forced out of Brawn to make way for - aaaarrrggghhh! - one Michael Schumacher. Now that should be interesting for 2010. As regards Button and Hamilton - two past world champs competing against each other in the same car? Will only end in tears for one of them.