Mega Kudos to Whatever for the English version
Kimi Raikkonen, F1's Black horse
Our chief editor analyzes the Finnish battle for a second World Title from a team without the resources of the four biggest. But with talent and common sense; a black horse he is…
THE HISTORY
Kimi Raikkonen is a man we all envy. He has one of the best careers in the world –according to Tom Cruise- and has the reputation of a driver who lives outsider the system, the owner of his own self, the rebel, the one who cannot be put under. His own nickname, Iceman, says it all: nothing troubles him, nothing disturbs him. He is the ice man, the one who doesn’t brake, and doesn’t melt, he is an ancestral fiord’s block, with thousands of meters of depth, without access. All he need is on his helmet, with a design who means protection and who covers him way before all Gods that exist and will exist ever will. The man of ice is peacefully in the metaphysician, and is at the same time, the owner and master of his physical surroundings.
That is how he came to F1, with only 23 races (all Renault’s 2.0 or Ford’s formula) under his belt and a three day test with Sauber at Mugello, in which he almost tied the times of a so called Michael Schumacher, who obtained his third F1 championship that same year with Ferrari; he was hired as a tester and later earned the seat for the season. When he presented himself at the starting grid in Australia 2001, almost everybody –but Peter Sauber- thought he wasn’t going to make it, but he finished on the points in his first race and the doubts stopped. After that, in 2002 he began his career at McLaren with a podium and a first win in 2003, and fighting for the championship from then on, with some bad luck, later he would emigrate to Maranello in 2007 to replace Michael Schumacher and went to win the championship in his first season with the reds, even though his next two seasons weren’t as successful.
After a two year break in which he raced in the Rallies World Championship (WRC) with his own team “iceOne” and was fifth in his best result, in the beginning of 2012 he signed for Lotus. But imi Raikkonen’s bigger strength is his driving. Even though he is very expressive in his conversations after something happens on the track, like his vocabulary after the incident with Sergio Pérez in Malasya, for example, Kimi lives up for his nickname and is a very mature driver, very fast and stays cool in the heat of the battle and doesen’t demands from his car what is not capable. His consistency has become really long and his laps don’t vary more than a couple of seconds in his races, very similar to Nelson Piquet’s, another respectable driver in respect of consistent lap times no matter for how long.
Kimi is his own’s best asset and that’s why the engineers ask themselves how good is the Lotus in reality, or if it’s actually Kimi’s driving what has him in the place where he is now, fighting for the constructors championship and second place in the driver’s.
THE MAN
Kimi is also the perfect example of “less is more”. Cheaper than the other champions, more effective, more absent in PR activities, but also more grounded. The glamour, fame and luxuries doesn’t interest him. Having a chat with him, I learned he drives a compact car popular around Europe and his reason was “ Is easier to park”. When you interview him, he looks constantly at his watch to make you know you are taking time away from his life and that you better make it worth it, but if you ask two dull questions in a row, he simply stands up and leaves, he doesn’t need the nonsense… just as he didn’t needed it in the cockpit with his engineer reminding him of the obvious and making him loose it –and it even cost the engineer’s job who left to Red Bull in 2013- but what nobody expected was Kimi’s words going viral in the web and increasing his popularity.
The perception of the Finnish is that he is a guy like us, but a lot faster, who likes to have fun, and doesn’t need to brag, or to drive a super car on the streets, doesn’t own a yacht or is ostentatious, he is very private and simply faces the world under his own terms without letting it impose on himself. He does the least possible PR work and if he doesn’t like something he says it like it is. In a way he is the rebel everyone wish they could be and aren’t, but he is also a man of principles that doesn’t play dirty Schumacher’s style of: The goal justifies the means. He is tough on the track and if he wins, there’s no need to jump up and down about it, it’s his job and he just fulfilled it. And if he looses, as he told me: “you just have to go back and do it better next time, you always know what you did wrong”. Telemetry or not.
¿Admirable? Yes. ¿Fast? That too. ¿Friendly? No, he rather be left alone, he signs autographs for necessity, avoids media pictures and doesn’t feel he has anything worth of idolatry. ¡even more admirable!
QUOTES:
“I don’t need any pressure from anyone else, I know if I’m doing the best I can or not”
“why did you made me stop, the tyres were still good”
“It’s a second place, so there’s no reason for to much celebration”
“To try is to try, you can never be sure about anything”
FACTS:
180 races (87 with McLaren)
20 wins (with McLaren and Ferrari 9 each) 11.11%
38 fastest laps 21.11%
16 Poll positions 8.89%
THE FOUNDATION
¿From where does he come from? There’s a detail that illustrates his up-bringing well. Kimi is maybe the only F1 driver that grew up in a house with no indoor bathroom. It was a house in the outskirts of Helsinki, of more or less 50 square meters, made of wood and with an outside bathroom. For fun, Kimi and his older brother Rami had a go-kart that they used to share and take turns. When they grew up, the fighting for the kart became bigger and frequent. Their father, a part-time taxi driver, had a bit of money saved and when the time came to install an inside bathroom, because of the cold winters, he also noticed there was need for a second go-kart to support the growing talent of his sons and avoid the fighting. The decision was easy: he bought another go-kart and the inside bathroom had to wait another couple of years. Since very little, Kimi learned about priorities. So there’s no doubt why – at least in economic terms- he is the best driver in the world. ¿And in the track, you ask? There too…
F1’s BARGAIN
Kimi is also the cheapest F1 champion in a long time, compared with the other four. And his return rate is much better per race, per point, per victory and all those measurements that can sink an F1 team, because the money the drivers get payed is usually money that won’t be used to develop the car. As you can see here, Kimi is a bargain and as the season folds it will improve.
