It’s been seventeen long years since 2007 when Kimi Raikkonen, the incredible racing talent, won a world championship title for (and in a) Ferrari. No one else has gone on to achieve the feat. When he did so at Sau Paulo, he aced menacing completion from the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, beating the former by one solitary point.
But that’s just the beginning. Michael Schumacher once said he’s one to watch for the times to come. Sir Stirling Moss stated that he’s possibly the fastest-ever driver to have taken to the wheels of an F1 car.
He once won a proper Formula 1 Grand Prix, starting the race from seventeenth on the grid. This happened in Japan in 2005. It has been described as one of the greatest fightbacks in F1 history.
Despite not driving an F1 car for two consecutive years, he came back to win a race in the very year of his return to the grid. This was Abu Dhabi in 2012, where, driving a car powered by Renault, he outfoxed a Ferrari and Red Bull. Later that evening, while on the podium at the Yas Marina, he was asked what his emotions might be at that time, to which he said, “Not much, really!”
Legend has it that he was found fast asleep hours before his maiden F1 Grand Prix, only to finish the contest in points while driving a Sauber.
This was at the 2002 Australian Grand Prix, his maiden voyage into the dizzying world of intense, back-breaking, and dazzlingly fast Grand Prix racing.
What’s more?
Six years ago, circa 2018, he set the fastest-ever lap recorded in the entire history of Formula 1. It was a 1:19:119 in a Ferrari, and that too, amid tens of thousands of impassioned Ferrari fans at Monza that reviled Mercedes fans, stunned those from Red Bull, and made Ferrari’s Tifosi jump with indescribable joy.
What was impressive beyond measure was that the man was 38 years old when he achieved the dazzling record-breaking feat.
A day later, he hung on to a fighting second, finishing just behind the iconic Sir Lewis Hamilton to hit a century of F1 podiums. As on date and until his last day in the supremely challenging world of Formula 1 racing, he finished a third of the races he participated in on the podium.
Kimi Raikkonen earned 103 F1 career podiums, 21 of those were race wins.
Kimi Matias Raikkonen blazed a trail for many to follow. He has achieved things in Formula 1 that many would simply dream of.
Moreover, he’s done that with exceptional speed, immense self-confidence, and an exceptionally uncomplicated demeanor.
One reckons that what makes the man from Finland a standout is that he’s broken records and attained milestones in the simplest of ways.
There’s been no drama.
There’s been no theatrics or showing of tantrums. Not a chance. Never with Kimi. This didn’t change from the time he set foot into F1 until the final lap he drove in his glittering career. A sense of simplicity and self-assuredness about Raikkonen endeared him to his fans and rivals alike.
For the impressive nineteen seasons Kimi Raikkonen lasted in F1, including stepping away from the sport (after 2009’s completion) and making a foray back into it (starting 2012), Kimi Raikkonen epitomised the meaning of being simple and sorted.
Not called the Iceman for nothing, his incredible ability to cool under pressure and the refusal to put up an act exemplified Kimi Raikkonen. It defined who he was.
It could be said, the man who retired in 2021, epitomised daredevilry in an F1 car in the most uncomplicated way possible.
The love from his peers
There’s so much one can always learn from Kimi that it won’t be wrong to suggest that Formula 1’s Iceman is a bit of an inspiration. That’s besides being an enigma.
So much so that the man who has six more world titles than him and lost out a shot at winning a maiden title back in 2007 confesses to being a fan of Kimi Raikkonen.
Towards the end of the Finn’s run in 2021 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Hamilton, among several other drivers, was asked what set Kimi apart from his peers. To this, he’d say, “Massively talented, incredibly quick, and there were no tricks with Kimi.”
Three years earlier, Kimi Raikkonen, one of Hamilton’s many great rivals, earned another dash of praise from the British racing legend. At France, where both drivers scored a podium, with Hamilton acing the contest for Mercedes, the Briton lavished effusive praise for the Ferrari driver by saying, “I don’t know if Kimi realizes what a big legend he is. Before coming to Formula 1, when I was playing video games, I was always Kimi in his car!”
But that’s not all; one of Raikkonen’s teammates at Ferrari, Fernando Alonso, remarked that “Kimi was always fair and always competitive. You could rely on Kimi for not doing anything stupid or dangerous when you were side-by-side him on the race track!” It ought to be noted that Alonso has two world titles to his name to Kimi’s one.
But the youngsters in F1 who weren’t even there when Kimi began his career but got to share a part of the same track as him as they’d make their debuts in the subsequent years were heartfelt and even sad upon learning of Kimi Raikkonen’s departure.
In 2021, McLaren’s Lando Norris said that he’d “love to emulate some of Kimi’s feats!” Meanwhile, Frenchman Esteban Ocon called him an “all-time great,” while Pierre Gasly of Alpine said, “There’s one and only one Kimi!”
Finally, Daniel Ricciardo, who most recently drove his final F1 race, shared, “Even me in all these years… do I honestly know where I stand with Kimi? No, because there are so few words, but as a fan of the sport, when growing up, I used to watch it. There were two images attached to him: young and fast!!”
Of the many things one can learn from Kimi Raikkonen, one of the sport’s most introducing and naturally likable characters, we bring you the following on the occasion of the Espoo-born driver’s 45th birthday.
Mental Toughness
Throughout his checkered and illustrious career, wherein he scored 349 Grand Prix starts, Raikkonen battled some fierce opponents. There were Schumacher, Alonso, and Hamilton at the beginning of his McLaren years, and later, he fought on against the troika of Vettel, Ricciardo, Verstappen, and Bottas, an exhilarating and dominant quarter with the German Sebastian Vettel with four titles to his credit.
Yet, Kimi, who seldom lost cool or composure on the track, kept reminding his peers of his incredible skill at the wheel and the redoubtable race craft. He won the 2013 Australian Grand Prix, the season’s opening round at Melbourne, while driving in a Lotus Renault. A year earlier, he took the hugely underrated Formula 1 of Lotus-Renault to third place in the driver’s championship. At one stage, he was well within fighting distance of claiming the title by putting up a strong fight against Fernando Alonso of Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull. What his critics said of him or just how strong the two other rival teams were never really bothered the Iceman.
At the Portuguese Grand Prix of 2020, experience and focus were Kimi’s watchwords when, on a rain-soaked Portimao, Raikkonen pulled his nonperforming Alfa Romeo from sixteenth to sixth inside the opening lap, passing cars one after the other on a track where several faster cars than his Alfa Romeo struggled, Kimi excelled by finding grip and using it to his advantage. Despite battling immense competition in extremely dangerous driving conditions, Kimi never lost his focus and delivered what has been vastly described as one of the most incredible opening laps in the history of Formula 1.
Fighting The Odds And Not Getting Overwhelmed By Them
The year was 2009, and the venue was the Brazilian Grand Prix. Heikki Kovalainen, then just ahead of Kimi, had pitted for his scheduled change of tyre and fuel check. But a fuel hose attached to his car wasn’t plugged off in time when the driver began to exit the pit.
Kimi Raikkonen’s exhaust ignited the spilled fuel in a fireball; the Ferrari driver was right behind Kovalainen, his fellow Finn. Luckily, no one was injured, but things could’ve been messy. There were splashes of fuel on Raikkonen for no fault of his. So when he could simply have retired, true to his bold and unperturbed demeanor, Kimi continued to drive and, in the end, finished a fighting sixth.
I’m not sure if others would’ve continued to race along.
Another feat tied to Kimi is his title of being the “King of Spa,” a moniker attributed to him for winning the great race called the Belgian Grand Prix stationed at Spa-Francorchamps on no fewer than four separate occasions. During his last ever win at the famed circuit, widely regarded as one of F1’s most grueling challenges as also a picturesque beauty, Raikkonen drove steadily a far-from-perfect Ferrari F 2009 and, in the closing moments, whisked past Force India’s Giancarlo Fisichella in breakneck speed.
A Ferrari that hadn’t won any race before Belgium’s 2009 victory was steered mightily well by Raikkonen in a cool and unflustered manner. Despite having had all sorts of negative things written about him up to that point, Kimi was hardly bothered by his critics. Once again, he won a sensational Grand Prix and kept things admirably simple, refusing to jump up and down or paint his win onto the others’ faces.
Keeping It Bloody Simple
When one drives in Formula 1, one does become famous. It is the world’s most expensive sporting contest and one of the grandest competitions.
But Kimi Raikkonen considered a rockstar of sorts, never fed off the fame that F1 awarded him.
He kept himself and his deeds simple and to the point. Not once in his particularly long career did he say a line to hog the limelight.
That just wasn’t him.
Nothing was muttered to bedazzle fans with the aim of deliberately capturing their attention.
His race craft, marvelous ability to execute fast overtakes, and breathtaking moves, all of which resulted in the 46 fastest laps, were enough.
They did it for him. No extra or cheap talk was involved.
Kimi was, still is, loved for that honest and bright smile. The more fans and the paraphernalia became emotional and passionate about Kimi, the more F1’s Iceman cut an almost zen-like persona; all of which was a hundred percent genuine or organic.
Nothing was planned—no gimmicky stuff. A significant example is the Italian Grand Prix of 2018 at Monza. At the beating heart of Ferrari, when Raikkonen drove fans wild by delivering an insanely quick lap that worried Sebastian Vettel, the Finnish driver (upon setting a world record lap time) was congratulated on his team radio. They said, “Kimi, you’re on pole. Well done!” To this, he simply said, “Thank you.” And that was that.
But what’s most remarkable about Raikkonen, who famously wore sunglasses on the top of his cap perpetually and ate an ice cream in the wake of a race being marked by inclement weather, was his easygoing persona. He didn’t like to make a big deal out of things. In fact, so utterly chilled was he that once he famously remarked, “I don’t get excited!”
There was, if you think about it, a sense of detachment that Kimi epitomized. How?
When there was an overwhelming flow of emotion concerning his swansong contest, circa the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP, where everyone, whether fans or drivers, was sad that he was leaving F1, Kimi was all fine about it. He didn’t express his emotions. He was, in fact, not in the least sad that he couldn’t even finish his final ever race in points; at a tricky corner at the Yas Marina, the Alfa Romeo spun and went straight into the barriers, thus bringing an end to a journey punctuated with greatness and speed for nearly two long decades. But Raikkonen was far from bitter; there was no frustration.
Akin to the gentle breeze that keeps on flowing, he had moved on. Isn’t that very monk-like? Isn’t that envy-inspiring when you’re unruffled by either victory or defeat? Isn’t that when you’ve attained the ultimate zen-like mind space? Kimi reaches us without ever emphasizing any kind of teaching about being cool under pressure and not letting circumstances dictate our emotions.
Happy b’day, Iceman!