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Dennis baulked at paying Kimi way north of his current $45m per year - a deal skillfully negotiated by Robertson (his manager)
Robertson went to see Jean Todt and Luca di Montezemelo and signed an option. Luca is painted as the man who wanted Kimi at any cost regardless of what Jean Todt, Ross Brawn or Michael Schumacher wanted. He also wanted to break the strong hold Todt/Schumacher had on the team. Schumacher was given the option to race on with Kimi as his teammate or retire.
This prompted Dennis to open negotiations with Flav to sign Alonso for 2007. This shut off a Kimi return to Mclaren and after Rossi said no to a Ferrari drive (which Todt, MS and Brawn were in favour of) , and Kimi had a dalliance with Flav and Renault, the Finn signed for Ferrari forcing MS to retire.
This helps explain a lot, seems there was a whole load of negotiations going on pre Monza. I think it was all handled very badly.
But I can't help but think it's a shame, a shame we didn't see Schumacher vs Raikkonen, a shame a driver like Michael had to be forced out or sacrifice the position of Massa in F1.
