As a sports-hungry 11 year-old, Kimi Raikkonen’s youthful enthusiasm for karting quickly developed into his chosen career. The young Finn swiftly stamped his authority on the local opposition before making his mark in international events. Surprisingly, he never won a karting title, but his early racing days singled him out as a future star.
In 2000 - ten years after he had first got behind the wheel of a kart - Raikkonen made the switch to single-seaters. Choosing the UK Formula Renault series as his springboard, the previously title-less driver took the championship with seven wins, 316 points and six pole positions. Indeed, the Finn was so dominant that year, several Formula One teams, convinced of his raw talent, began to court him.
Sauber were the first to make a concrete offer and after a successful three-day test, Raikkonen landed a race drive with the Swiss squad for 2001. Given that he had only 23 single-seater race starts to his name, many questioned Peter Sauber’s confidence, but from the outset Raikkonen’s pace and consistency blew such criticisms out of the water. He ended his first Formula One season with nine championship points - and the admiration of much of the paddock, including, most notably, Ron Dennis.
The McLaren boss was on the look out for a driver capable of filling the shoes of his retirement-bound double champion, Mika Hakkinen. Recognising Raikkonen’s rising star, Dennis swiftly signed him on a lengthy five-year contract to replace his original ‘flying Finn’. Now the question on everybody’s lips was whether Raikkonen could handle a top-flight team so early in his career.
But as before at Sauber, he quickly silenced the sceptics and his first season with McLaren was widely regarded as a success. Although, like team mate David Coulthard, he did not win a race, Raikkonen scored four podium finishes and 24 championship points, an impressive tally considering his 10 retirements. True, Coulthard scored almost twice as many points, but the McLaren veteran of six years found himself outclassed by his new colleague in qualifying.
The following year in Malaysia Raikkonen enjoyed his first taste of victory, and a further ten podiums saw him come within two points of upsetting Michael Schumacher’s run of drivers’ titles. But then, just as it seemed Raikkonen was indeed the new Hakkinen, reliability problems hit McLaren and at the start of 2004 he retired from all three opening races. Only a pole at Silverstone later in the year and a dominant victory in the Belgium reaffirmed the Finn’s reputation and put the fading Coulthard still further in the shade.
Coulthard’s exit in 2005 marked the arrival of Juan Pablo Montoya at McLaren, but like his Scottish predecessor, the Colombian would generally fail to match Raikkonen. After the team’s bleak start to the season, again marred by poor reliability, they gradually gained momentum and Raikkonen ultimately enjoyed five poles, five podiums and seven wins. But Renault and Fernando Alonso retained the edge in the title chase, leaving Raikkonen to finish runner-up for a second time in three years. It was a bitter blow for a driver widely regarded as the fastest on the grid - over a single lap at least - and it was no coincidence that rumours soon began to surface of a possible move away from McLaren.
Despite the speculation, Raikkonen’s driving remained as determined and consistent as ever in 2006. Oblivious to the distractions of Montoya’s unscheduled exit for NASCAR, he scored in every race he finished. However, he also retired six times and finished a downhearted fifth in the drivers’ championship. By then, though, the worst-kept secret in the paddock had already been confirmed - Raikkonen’s move to Ferrari for 2007, to replace Michael Schumacher. A hard act to follow perhaps, but few expected Raikkonen to notice the pressure - he is known as ‘the iceman’ after all - and so it proved.
After winning on his Ferrari debut in Australia, Raikkonen kept a watching brief throughout the ’07 season, waiting until the very last round to regain the championship lead and hence steal the drivers’ title from under the nose of previous employers McLaren.
Fernando Alonso expects tough competition from the likes of Williams and Red Bull Racing as Renault look to try and re-establish themselves as a force in the Formula 1 world championship.
