Lotus F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen has possibly given the bluntest reason one could possibly have given regarding his decision to move from his current team to Scuderia Ferrari in 2014.

According to the Finn, the reason why he has decided to leave the Lotus F1 team is purely financial and added that he has also not got his salary, which, he mentioned, was unfortunate. The return of Raikkonen to the legendary Italian team was announced last week where he will replace Brazilian Felipe Massa and race alongside Fernando Alonso for a yearly fee reported to be around £ 20 million.

The Flying Finn has been involved in a long battle with his current team over unpaid dues as the Malaysian team struggles to survive financially. He even went without for a part of the 2012 season and has had to face that kind of situation once again.

Meanwhile, Jacques Villeneuve, another former world champion is of the opinion that Ferrari has made the biggest mistake by replacing Felipe Massa with Kimi Raikkonen. The 33 year old, who currently sits at fourth in the Drivers’ World Championship standings, was the last driver to win the world title for Ferrari during his first stint with the team in 2007.

However, his form dipped after that and he left Ferrari and the sport completely in 2009 before returning once again with Lotus F1 a couple of years later. And the 1997 world champion Villeneuve thinks that Ferrari is insane to make such a decision.

According to the Canadian, Kimi Raikkonen can drive extremely fast but he will not work with the engineers or help in developing the car and he will not make it to sponsor appointments as well. And he thinks Ferrari might just pay the price for bringing in Raikkonen to the team.