Thursday, December 9th, 2021
Last race of the F1 legend
Finally they leave all Raikkones alone
Nobody has driven more races in Formula 1 than Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn will retire this weekend with his 349th Grand Prix start. His career is full of iconic moments, from the escape on the boat in Monaco to legendary radio messages to lonely hikes through the desert.
Kimi Raikkonen didn’t want to completely rule out a sudden outburst of emotion. “I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” said the Finn, looking at the overflowing emotions in his 349th and final race. Nobody rolled to the start line more often. Flushing emotions are not exactly what this 42-year-old man, born in Espoo, Finland’s second largest city, is known for in public. Raikkonen isn’t for free: the iceman.
A cool guy that everyone in the paddock likes and adores. “It is unbelievable what he has achieved,” says future Mercedes driver George Russell. When Raikkonen raced to sixth place in Melbourne’s debut on March 4, 2001 in what was then the Sauber, Russell was three years old. When Raikkonen joins Formula 1, he also drives against Jos Verstappen. Max Verstappen’s father. When Raikkonen made his debut, Michael Schumacher was on the way to his fourth world title. This year he also drives against his son Mick.
“I don’t think that’s funny, I like it,” said Raikkonen: “I think that’s pretty nice, I don’t feel old. You only feel old when you’re old in your head. But I don’t feel myself old.” His two children also keep Raikkonen young. Together with their wife Minttu they traveled to the final of Formula 1. It was nice, emphasized Raikkonen, even if he believed that the children would rather enjoy the pool and the midsummer temperatures.
From the burning car straight onto the yacht
The iceman can withstand them too. The pictures of how Raikkonen trudged through the scorching desert of Sakhir in Bahrain at 37 degrees after a defect in his Ferrari racing car in 2017 – in fireproof red overalls and with his helmet still on his head – are unforgettable. Just like the scenes many years before, which also shaped his image for a long time, when Raikkonen fell at a party on a yacht or in 2006 at the Monaco race after a fiery end because of a defect in his then McLaren and walked straight onto a luxury boat and with him bare chested watched the rest of the race.
Raikkonen never cared about labels. Raikkonen always remained Kimi Raikkonen. This is one of the reasons why the Finn and Sebastian Vettel got along so well. The fact that the Heppenheim-born Raikkonen imitated deceptively well at an award ceremony did not cause dissonance either. “Will you miss him? Yes,” said Vettel recently.
With Raikkonen you could not have a quarrel or a problem. “If you have it, then the problem is not him – then you are the problem,” emphasized Vettel. Without possibly knowing what Raikkonen said with a laugh about previous badminton matches: “I even tried a couple of times in the past to let him win. Probably his plan is for me to get old enough for him to finally beat me . “
“We’ll leave you alone now”
Raikkonen also succeeded during his time in Ferrari, which Vettel did not. To become world champion with the Scuderia, also because he did not let himself be disturbed by the bitter Zoff duel between the then McLaren colleagues Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso in 2007, so typical for him.
Raikkonen achieved 21 victories in Formula 1, he drove for Sauber, McLaren, Ferrari, took a break in the premier class in 2010 and 2011 and returned to Lotus, before he went back to Ferrari and again to the Sauber successor Alfa Romeo. That alone says a lot: Raikkonen and his teams couldn’t get away from each other.
Just like his fans around the world. With him goes one of the absolute cult figures. His sayings, when he spoke, are legendary. Like in 2012 in Abu Dhabi, when he drove towards his 20th Grand Prix success and, annoyed by the hints and tips from his race engineer, sparked back: “Leave me alone, I know what I’m doing.” His current team reacted to this and sent him into his last race with the slogan on the Alfa: “Dear Kimi, we will leave you alone now.”