Championship Ambitions

Clearly everybody want to be world champion and for as many times as possible. However some top champion drivers stay motivated for different lengths of time and may choose to leave F1 once certain minimum goals are accomplished. The current WDC winners in the field are Raikkonen and Alonso with Hamilton threatening to win at some point. Anybody care to guess what their ambitions might be?

Personally I feel Kimi wants to equal Hakkinen's 2 WDC and doesn't want to stay in F1 for too long and would retire once a second championship is achieved.
Alonso has new challenges at present. Again he may not stay forever in the sport and a third WDC would probably be enough for him.
Lewis it's difficult to say since he hasn't won a title yet though he is clearly very ambitious. His hero is Ayrton Senna so maybe 3 titles would be his goal car permitting?

I wonder if Kimi and Alonso think in terms of "world domination" in the way Senna and Schumacher did. I think Kimi enjoys life at Ferrari, and as long as they're winning, it's fun, simple as that. If they stop winning, and Montezmolo piles on the pressure, then he'll quit. Hasn't he gone on record as saying he won't stay around long? But who knows how much of his blase attitude is an act?

I see Alonso's return to Renault as kind of like moving back in with your parents after you lost your job. He's got the hots for Ferrari, and his plan, sooner than later, is to go there, Kimi or not, and take over. I think he'll stick around a long time because he seems as though he doesn't have anything else in his life except racing.

Although I like Lewis a lot, any talk from him about multiple championships is way presumptuous. But he's probably the most ambitious of them all, in terms of "big goals", and sees himself winning many championships.

Originally posted by chrisj
Although I like Lewis a lot, any talk from him about multiple championships is way presumptuous. But he's probably the most ambitious of them all, in terms of "big goals", and sees himself winning many championships.

I think Alonso said all great champions won at least 3 championship, so that's his ambition too.
Lewis is very ambitious, but I think he doesn't necesarily measure success in F1 by no. of championship, Senna only won 3, but Lewis thinks he's the best ever. He said 3 championships would great and he did not go into F1 to win 7 or 8 championships (obiously annoyed by question like: will you surpass Schmarcher?)
I think it's the same for Kimi, 3 is the number. And 3 championships would make him the greatest Finnish champion.

I think Kimi has achieved his ambition which was to become a WDC, from now on he only wants to enjoy himself and when he one day wakes up thinking he doesn't want it any more he will simply walk away.

Alonso: Three titles seem to be a kind of milestone in his mind, he once said something to the effect "every great driver has three or more titles". I think his ambition is also to win it with another team than Renault and because of that I don't think he is really happy to be back there. (He may be happy with the atmosphere in the team, but I think going back to Renault doesn't really serve his ambition and therefore he will look for other opportunites.)

Hamilton's ambition is breaking every record in sight. Actually I saw his father telling on TV last year: "Let's bet my son will be an 8 times WDC." But exactly because of this ambition he will never go to a lesser team than what is capable to fight for the title, maybe he will never even leave McLaren and IMO that will leave a questionmark over his achievements (what would he have done with lesser teams - that will be never answered) even IF he really breaks the records he wishes to break.