Kimi Räikkönen Space - World Champion 2007 - The Latest News|Photos|Videos -

Kimi's Column: Post British GP/ German Preview

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:13:10 GMT

From FerrariWorld.com

Reacting Without Panic

We didn't win the British GP, but at least as far as I'm concerned, I didn't loose too much ground. It was a very difficult race. We didn't expect the rain to become more intense immediately after our pit stop: but that's what happened and we found ourselves in one of the worst possible situation for nine endless laps. I think I've never driven a Formula One race under such difficult conditions. It was almost impossible to stay on the track with used tyres and so much water. Although going slow I was almost everywhere on aquaplaning! I could just hope not to bump into someone or something. But as usual one should never gives up and that's what me and the Team did. Once we had changed the tyres the situation was under control and I could make up ground. It was a great feeling to get back and into the points so fast. Then there was the battle with Alonso for fourth position. It was a very important point to compete for, but I didn't want to risk too much. In the end I managed to overtake him and get that place.

Considering everything that happened, it could have gone worse. We had the pace to win and there's no doubt about it, but we took a wrong decision. We spoke about it via radio with the pitwall and we thought that, based on the forecast, the rain should not have lasted much longer than a couple of minutes and that's why we decided to keep the same set of tyres.

But the forecast was wrong and I had to slow down a lot: This shower seemed to last forever.

Having said that, the whole weekend was not very easy. We came to Silverstone with a good feeling after the tests, but for some reason or the other, the car didn't go as well on Friday. It went better on Saturday, but the wind made everything much more difficult during Q3: the third spot on the grid was not too bad.

I had a good start and tried to find a gap to overtake Heikki and Webber. But suddenly Mark came to the left and I had to slow down, because I had nowhere to go. Hamilton had a good start and I lost a position to him. When we came close to the pit stop I had the highest pace over the weekend and it seemed as if everything went into the right direction. Unfortunately the black clouds came back and everything changed again. The five points and the fact that I'm leading the standings with Felipe and Lewis give me satisfaction nevertheless. If I'm in such a position after four races, where everything happened, my confidence can only be strengthened.

Now we are looking ahead to the next race and react without panic. We know that we have a winning car: we just need a weekend without big problems. As of today we are at Hockenheim for two days of testing, with Felipe, who'll be on the track on Thursday. It's my first race with Ferrari on this track, so it's a new experience for me. I'd say that we'll be competitive, because the F2008 has demonstrated to be competitive wherever we are: so we can fight back!

Nothing more to add really! Only that I hope Kimi has a good result if not a win in Hockenheim, being his first visit to the track with Ferrari. His previous races in Hockenheim have been riddled with bad luck.

Two of Kimi's 31 fastest laps are from Hockenheim. In 2005 he was leading the race and was quite a distance ahead of his closest rival, Fernando Alonso in the Renault, and Kimi was clearly going to win, before his McLaren engine blew up. Earlier in 2004 he was also on the chase in 2nd place with Schumacher's Ferrari in front, but his McLaren rear wing flew off throwing Kimi at full speed into the barrier ahead of turn 1. In 2006, Kimi was on pole with McLaren but finished the race 3rd, which was not bad considering the MP4/21 couldn't win a single race that year. Let's just hope Ferrari can give him the goods this weekend because there's no doubt Kimi's going to fight hard to defend his title this year.

p.s On Kimi's website, they've added a new section on the bottom left for his racing teams, developed together with his managers, in Formula 3 and Formula BMW. Funnily, they've spelt it wrong - Raikkonen Roberston Racing. It's Robertson! It's worthy to note that Atte Mustonen is a promising young talent part of Raikkonen Robertson Racing, and he's another Finn to watch for the future. In his biography, it says his sport idol is Kimi and apart from F1 I've only barely managed to keep an eye on Atte but who knows, you might see the Atte Mustonen Space pop up...

And incase you're still wondering on the Kimi/photographer incident, Ferrari have downplayed the incident as 'an unfortunate circumstance':

The team explained the world champion's actions on Sunday as 'understandable', after the Finn shoved Cahier because he felt the photographer was being 'too intrusive'.

"The photographer's behaviour was too intrusive as he put his feet on Kimi's stuff despite Kimi's physio warning," Ferrari spokesman Luca Colajanni told autosport.com. "There is video evidence and witnesses which can confirm it.

"Kimi's reaction was understandable, considering how important the minutes before the start of a race are for a driver. He did not push Cahier too hard: the photographer fell down because he was in an unbalanced position.

"We believe it was an unfortunate circumstance."

British photographer Darren Heath witnessed the incident and explained on his website's blog that Cahier had crossed into Raikkonen's personal space.

"He'd got too close and Kimi had taken action, firmly shoving the press man away," said Heath. "A tense few seconds ensued as the snapper thought to retaliate, the wound-up Finn turning away and defusing the situation."

F1 Testing: Hockenheim

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:54:52 GMT

From Autosport.com

Lewis Hamilton made good use of the new anvil wing engine cover on his McLaren MP4-23 to lead the way on the opening day of testing at Hockenheim in Germany on Tuesday.

The Briton tried the new engine cover design out for four laps prior to an early lunch caused by a rain shower, before setting his fastest time of one minute 15.483 seconds in the afternoon.

Hamilton's performance will almost certainly have been helped by further aerodynamic and suspension modifications that his team are introducing as they knuckle down for the championship fight with Ferrari.

Kimi Raikkonen ended the day second fastest overall, but was more than three tenths of a second adrift of Hamilton. Nico Rosberg was third quickest for Williams, while Adrian Sutil was an encouraging fourth quickest for Force India.

The day was marred by a number of rain showers that hampered the teams' progress over the day, although they were still able to complete a great deal of dry running.

The only red flag of the day was caused when Alexander Wurz spun off at the Mercedes Tribune corner while running on wet tyres. He had spent the day evaluating a new front wing.

Toyota were the other team trying out major updates, with new front and rear wings on their TF108 helping Kamui Kobayashi set the sixth quickest time.

Kimi Raikkonen took to the track for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. The reigning world champion and, along with two others, the leader of the 2008 series, had a programme centred on set-up work in preparation for the German Grand Prix, which takes place at this track on 20th July. He also evaluated new aerodynamic and mechanical components. The day's work was held up by rain which fell intermittently up to four in the afternoon. Kimi completed a total of 63 laps, the quickest in a time of 1.15.803.

The Scuderia continues testing at this circuit tomorrow, with Raikkonen again on track.

Pos  Driver       Team                     Time      Laps
 1.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes    (B)  1:15.483  75
 2.  Raikkonen    Ferrari             (B)  1:15.803  63
 3.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota     (B)  1:16.099  87
 4.  Sutil        Force India-Ferrari (B)  1:16.516  97
 5.  Bourdais     Toro Rosso-Ferrari  (B)  1:16.533  113
 6.  Kobayashi    Toyota              (B)  1:16.570  65
 7.  Heidfeld     BMW Sauber          (B)  1:16.593  59
 8.  Piquet       Renault             (B)  1:16.856  111
 9.  Coulthard    Red Bull-Renault    (B)  1:17.361  67
10.  Wurz         Honda               (B)  1:17.825  89

McLaren Test Anvil Wing
From Autosport.com

McLaren's bid to keep up the aggressive development of their MP4-23 continued on Tuesday when they ran an anvil wing engine cover for the first time at the Hockenheim test.

Just 48 hours after Lewis Hamilton got his world championship ambitions back on track with a stunning victory in the British Grand Prix, the British driver evaluated the new engine cover.

The use of the engine cover follows the trend begun by Red Bull Racing and since copied by Renault and Force India.

Although rain showers have marred the opening day of the test at Hockenheim, McLaren should be able to get enough dry running to evaluate whether or not to run the cover at the German Grand Prix.

McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh believed the team's work on the car over recent weeks was now paying dividends in their fight against Ferrari.

"I think the reality is the team have done a fantastic job to continue to develop the car over the past two races and it's starting to pay off," Whitmarsh told autosport.com.

"The championship fight is rather like last year. In reality it will swing backwards and forwards according to how good a job we are doing. We will continue to improve but Ferrari are a strong team and they're going to be continuing to improve. We've just got to do it at a faster rate."

Well, let's see if Ferrari are concentrating 110% on developing the car, as McLaren certainly had upped their game in their preparations for Silverstone. I can't help but feel for Kimi especially, who's only really had yesterday off but even that with all the media rubbish in the air. Now he's back at work, but I'm sure he's focused on his job and only that. He wants to win, and doesn't care what people think about him. Winning is all that matters. Keep flying Kimi! Meanwhile...

Di Montezemolo: We must make no more mistakes
From Autosport.com

Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo has urged his team and drivers to stop making "stupid" mistakes if they are to stay in contention for the world championship this season.

The team chose to leave Kimi Raikkonen on the same set of intermediate tyres at his first pit stop and then left him out on the old tyres so long that he fell out of contention for victory at Silverstone yesterday.

Raikkonen and Felipe Massa also had several spins each in the race, although Raikkonen did recover to finish fourth, but di Montezemolo says they all need to learn from their mistakes.

"I hope we'll manage to win our eighth title in ten years," he was quoted as saying by Gazzetta dello Sport. "We will (manage it) if we don't carry on doing stupid things.

"Obviously I wasn't pleased with what I saw yesterday, but I hope it's a useful lesson. Knowing my men, I'm certain it is."

He also says Ferrari have missed out on too many good results so far this season and can't afford to throw away any more in the remaining races.

"We're at the half way point of the season and in the lead of the championship," he added. "But we've lost too many opportunities, so in the second half of the season we must not lose any more."

Silverstone 2008 Desktops

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:10:39 GMT

We hoped to have pictures of Kimi with a huge grin on his face to put on our desktops after the British GP, but yet again not everything went well. What we can still use though are these cool photos and as usual, I've selected the best ones for you to enjoy. And of course, I've made the special extra desktop (I bet Cahier is selling that photograph for millions now, considering the amount of publicity it got!) I've quite enjoyed making these as I listened to music on the headphones, as the music I listened to will be used in the British GP Highlight video coming later this week, and other music I can't wait to use for the videos I'm sure will be about Kimi winning again. You know, I always choose the emotional tunes, especially this year! *sniff, sniff*

Note - The basic wallpaper resolution 1024x786 is pretty outdated, so I went to a widescreen option this year of 1280x840. It's a standard laptop resolution, but it's aimed for the majority of Kimi fans around the world, keeping in mind not everyone has massive screens or very square ones either etc. Some have said that they can't use my wallpapers because they have 1280x1024 or 1680x1050 screens.

Obviously, it's difficult for me to make every single wallpaper in all these different resolutions. But, I've taken this onboard and have included a couple of the default wallpapers below into the extra resolution ones. So now you can take your pick which suits you best!

[Here's a plain version]

Different Resolutions (Limited Selection)
Wallpaper 4 in 1680x1050 | 1280x1024
Wallpaper 6 in 1680x1050 | 1280x1024
Wallpaper 9 in 1680x1050 | 1280x1024
Wallpaper 11 in 1680x1050 | 1280x1024
Wallpaper Special in 1680x1050 | 1280x1024

Also, if you've been interested in downloading all the images from the British GP* and previous 2008 races from this website (the high quality ones as shown in the Photo Extra HQ), you can do so by clicking on the rar file download links below.

{KRS Photos 1. Australia 2008 - 113MB
{KRS Photos 2. Malaysia 2008 - 29.88MB
{KRS Photos 3. Bahrain 2008 - 24.1MB
{KRS Photos 4. Spain 2008 - 44.26MB
{KRS Photos 5. Turkey 2008 - 27.17MB
{KRS Photos 6. Monaco 2008 - 28.1MB
{KRS Photos 7. Canada 2008 - 33.1MB
{KRS Photos 8. France 2008 - 38.3MB
{KRS Photos 9. Britain 2008 - 23MB*

2008 British GP Stats & Analysis

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:03:12 GMT

Silverstone provided such a great race and with the sell-out crowd, Hamilton winning it was historic and also special. Kimi's back-to-back victories in France and Silverstone last year were well over due, but this year it's becoming ever more harder to win again. They say in Italy that the number 17 is unlucky, and Kimi has lost two great opportunities to win his 17th GP at France and Silverstone. But, his career is growing rapidly and he has achieved a number of more records and notes worthy to mention from the 2008 British GP. Although stats and figures aren't of much interest to Kimi himself, let's take a look at stats and facts Silverstone brought us yesterday, courtesy of Autosport.com's Michele Merlino, and of course the extra Kimi information added by me.

Hamilton's dominant win

Lewis Hamilton won his seventh race in Silverstone, the first for him starting from the second row of the grid.

Hamilton won by a margin of 1:08.577 over Nick Heidfeld, and this is the largest margin since Damon Hill led a depleted field by two laps in the 1995 Australian Grand Prix. In that race several front-runners retired due to collisions or mechanical failures, and Hill won ahead of Olivier Panis.

To find another race where the two leading drivers were on the same lap and the gap was bigger, we have to move back another year, at the 1994 Pacific Grand Prix, where Michael Schumacher won by 1:15.300 over Gerhard Berger.

Honda and Barrichello back on the podium

Honda scored with Rubens Barrichello their ninth podium in history, the fourth since their return to racing in 2006. The last time Honda were on the podium was in the 2006 Brazilian Grand Prix with Jenson Button, and last time Barrichello climbed on the podium before this year's British Grand Prix was in the 2005 US Grand Prix when he took second behind then-teammate Schumacher in a Ferrari.

Barrichello scored his 62nd podium and thus ties with David Coulthard at the fourth all-time spot behind Schumacher (154), Alain Prost (106) and Ayrton Senna (80).

Joint leads

Following the British GP, there is a three-way tie at the top of the points standing. This also happened last year after Bahrain, when Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton had 22 points each.

It's only the third time this happens in 59 seasons: the third time occurred in the first year, 1950, when after Indianapolis Nino Farina, Juan Manuel Fangio and Johnnie Parsons all had 9 points after three races.

(The significant difference of this championship tie is that both Lewis and Felipe have won 3 races opposed to Kimi's only two victories at Malaysia and Spain.)

Qualifying notes

• First pole for Heikki Kovalainen, the 91st driver in history to start from pole position. It's also the third straight year that a McLaren car started on pole at Silverstone.

• Mark Webber equalled his best career qualifying result, a second place he gained four times: Malaysia 2004, Spain 2005 and Monaco 2006 being the other occurrences.

(Kimi managed to out qualify teammate Massa for the third consecutive time from Canada. However on all three occassions Kimi has failed to win in the races.)

Race notes

• Nick Heidfeld equals for the sixth time his best career result, a second place.

• Sixth straight fastest lap for Kimi Raikkonen, his third consecutive fastest lap in Silverstone since 2005. And with a fourth-place finish, the Finn is the seventh driver to score more than 500 points in career. He overtook Alonso in this ranking, now the couple is only one point apart, with Raikkonen at 504 and Fernando at 503.

• Raikkonen was not on the podium at Silverstone for the first time after five years. (2004 - 2nd, 2005 - 3rd, 2006 - 3rd, 2007 - 1st)

• The last time both Ferraris finished the race a lap down (or more) was in the 1996 Brazilian Grand Prix.

• For the first time in his career, Felipe Massa ended the race lapped twice by the leader. It's also the first time he was classified last.

Kimi, as mentioned, set the fastest lap at Silverstone with a time of 1.32.150. The sequence of fastest laps by Kimi Raikkonen keeps growing and now the Finn, reaching six fastest laps in a row this season, is ahead of the all-time 3rd place of Michael Schumacher:

Most consecutive fastest laps

Alberto Ascari - 7 (Belgium '52 - Argentina '53)
Kimi Raikkonen - 6 (Spain - Britain '08)
Michael Schumacher - 5 (Bahrain - Europe '04)

All time most fastest laps

Schumacher - 76
Prost - 41
Raikkonen - 31
Mansell - 30

If you're interested in looking at the full statistics of Kimi's career, you can read them all in the KRS Archive here. As the top 3 in the championship are level in points, no one has a clear advantage but it's time now to start attacking. Ferrari will soon have to decide who to push for the charge for the championship. So...now we head to Germany for round 10 of the season. Kimi has never won at Hockenheim, though he came pretty close to winning at the Nurburgring in 2005, one lap away to be precise. But we all know how that dramatically ended! He has taken two pole positions and fastest laps in Hockenheim however. Being a fast, with high speed straights, circuit, Kimi should be able to benefit from his Ferrari properly this time. Let's hope that together, he and the team can overcome their bad races and get back to winning. Below is a post-race interview with Kimi I've just uploaded, seeing as we didn't get any from him straight away yesterday:

Raikkonen & Photographer to Shake Hands After 'Grid Lock'?

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:32:45 GMT

And I think I have to clear this up once more. Yesterday, one guy is doing his job as a photographer (even if he's Mr Paul-Henri Cahier, and it can be very irritating for the subject who is a person) and the other is trying to do his job but is interrupted. Photographer Mr Cahier tries to get a shot of Kimi preparing for the race, however the Iceman doesn't seem in the mood when Cahier gets a bit too close...

Kimi was quite annoyed at that guy being right in his face while he's doing his business. Embarrassing for both sides, but Kimi probably didn't expect the photographer to fall over like that. However it went both ways, Cahier was in his face, stepping on his stuff, and Kimi didn't like it. Also, Mark Arnall (Kimi's trainer next to him) seems to have got annoyed too, saying "oi, mind the stuff", the exact moment Kimi looked up. The photographer was leaning on Kimi's race stuff.

Taken from an interview in Saturday's Silverstone Red Bulletin issue, Kimi says: "I don't mind what people think too much. If they ask nice questions then yes, but for sure if they ask stupid questions I won't answer and they will think I'm a dickhead. But it goes both ways. If everyone's nice to eachother it's much easier." Kimi's manager Steve Robertson and Ferrari press man Colajanni were interviewed on the small incident. They defended Kimi saying they completely understand his reaction although they will try to prevent such incidents occuring in the future. It seems the photographer was working for the Cahier Archive image website, and this is the proof with the famous Cahier signature > This was the picture that flashed in Kimi's eyes as he bent down to get something and the photographer carelessly stood on it, causing Kimi to push him away.

The famous photographer who was pushed by Kimi can keep this bruising but golden memory with him and on his website, the moment is captured vividly highlighting the blue/green eye of the Iceman who went hot. Yummy.

It's negative coverage of the world champion, unnecessarily provoked by a photographer who doesn't know where the limit is. Kimi's not a jerk. He's the most composed and laid back guy I've ever seen and I don't even know him. If Kimi is a jerk for pushing this guy, he would have done far worse to Lewis Hamilton for crashing into him in the pit lane of the 2008 Canadian GP. But he didn't.

Speaking to the Finnish press today, Kimi's spoke person Riku Kuvja said:

"They will surely shake hands in Hockenheim. The error was mutual."

Räikkönen is not expected to follow this case or be pursued any legal action from Mr Cahier:

"He is a long-line photographer, and knows the spirit of the game. It is not anticipated that the photographer will take any action," Riku Kuvaja said.

Press Release from Cahier Archive

Following the incident involving Kimi Raikkonen and Paul-Henri Cahier on the starting grid of the British Grand Prix in Silverstone, that saw the finnish driver assault the photographer, we decided that it was necessary to clarify a few points.

There never was any contact between the two men, nor did Paul-Henri ever touch Kimi's equipment. Furthermore, the distance at which Paul-Henri Cahier was taking a picture, although close, was completely standard. The photographers who take pictures at Grand Prix races are all professionnals who have been accredited by the FIA, and as the dozen other photographers who were standing next to Paul-Henri Cahier prove, there was nothing unusual or unethical about this situation.

Finally, Paul-Henri Cahier has been an F1 photographer for almost fourty years and has been close to the greatest champions, but none of them has ever behaved in such a rude manner. It is understandable that drivers might get irritable because of the pressure they undergo, but Kimi Raikkonen never even attempted to express his discontent in a non violent way. Paul-Henri Cahier luckily did not suffer any injury, and so does not intend to take any action, but he regrets the arrogance with which Kimi Raikkonen treated someone who was merely doing his job.

Oh whatever. Kimi's trainer told Cahier to MIND THE STUFF and was right in Kimi's way of his preparations. The video clearly shows, as does the last picture above, Kimi leaning over to get something, and Cahier was being careless knocking something over and flashed a light right in Kimi's face as the PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN PROVES! This is hardly arrogant behaviour, just a really upset driver. Kimi is known to dislike photo sessions in Formula One, though he takes his time signing autographs for fans, but he has never been as annoyed as this, not once. He went defensive and probably the adrenalin drivers have before the race starts played a part and clearly Raikkonen doesn't like people coming too close, let alone a photographer. I hope this teaches some lessons for photographers to do their job PROPERLY. Anyway, I hope both parties can put this behind as soon as possible and apologise to each other - Cahier should apologise for not considering Kimi's space when preparing for a tough race in the wet, and Kimi should perhaps say sorry for making the man fall over like that (which I'm absolutely positive he didn't intend).
Ferrari have downplayed the incident as 'an unfortunate circumstance':

The team explained the world champion's actions on Sunday as 'understandable', after the Finn shoved Cahier because he felt the photographer was being 'too intrusive'.

"The photographer's behaviour was too intrusive as he put his feet on Kimi's stuff despite Kimi's physio warning," Ferrari spokesman Luca Colajanni told autosport.com. "There is video evidence and witnesses which can confirm it.

"Kimi's reaction was understandable, considering how important the minutes before the start of a race are for a driver. He did not push Cahier too hard: the photographer fell down because he was in an unbalanced position.

"We believe it was an unfortunate circumstance."

British photographer Darren Heath witnessed the incident and explained on his website's blog that Cahier had crossed into Raikkonen's personal space.

"He'd got too close and Kimi had taken action, firmly shoving the press man away," said Heath. "A tense few seconds ensued as the snapper thought to retaliate, the wound-up Finn turning away and defusing the situation."

2008 Grand Prix of Britain, Ferrari Misjudgement Leave Kimi Down in 4th

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:11:18 GMT

| Sunday Race Day - Rain Showers Home Glory For Hamilton, Heidfeld 2nd, Barrichello 3rd!

Lewis Hamilton got his world championship challenge back on track with an outstanding home victory in challenging conditions.

The McLaren driver coped with constantly fluctuating levels of rain to dominate the British Grand Prix, eventually winning by over a minute and moving back into the joint points lead.

Nick Heidfeld took his third podium of the year in second, ahead of the sensational Rubens Barrichello, who gambled on a mid-race stint on extreme wets to take his first podium in his three seasons with Honda.

Kimi Raikkonen only managed fourth for Ferrari, ahead of pole-sitter Heikki Kovalainen, as both fell back in the rain, while Felipe Massa was the final finishers after spinning many times...(read full race report here)

Classified:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time
 1.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  1h39:09.440
 2.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber            (B)  +  1:08.577
 3.  Barrichello   Honda                 (B)  +  1:22.273
 4.  Raikkonen     Ferrari               (B)  +     1 lap
 5.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  +     1 lap
 6.  Alonso        Renault               (B)  +     1 lap
 7.  Trulli        Toyota                (B)  +     1 lap
 8.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota       (B)  +     1 lap
 9.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota       (B)  +     1 lap
10.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault      (B)  +     1 lap
11.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)  +     1 lap
12.  Glock         Toyota                (B)  +     1 lap
13.  Massa         Ferrari               (B)  +    2 laps

Fastest lap: Raikkonen, 1:32.150

Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                      On lap
Kubica        BMW Sauber            (B)    40
Button        Honda                 (B)    39
Piquet        Renault               (B)    36
Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari   (B)    17
Sutil         Force India-Ferrari   (B)    11
Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)    1
Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault      (B)    1

Just as well I didn't go to the British Grand Prix this year then, hahaha! I would have been asbolutely soaked and covered in Lewis Hamilton fan sweat and alcohol. First of all, I think we all should sit down and applaud Lewis for how he did today. I ended up giving him a few claps as he crossed the line - what a win for him and a great way to say thanks to all his fans that had turned up there. Because really, at the end of the day, the fans deserve what they went to see! And no doubt the majority there were cheering for Lewis and McLaren though I hope the Kimi fans had a good time anyway. He deserves a break now, Lewis, he really does. Let's go easy on him, because he took it pretty easy in the end and put his talent to use. It was his best win ever, he says.

The start of the race was pure madness - I didn't expect that many cars to go off on the first lap but Lewis saw a great opportunity on the right of Webber and slipped through. Amazingly, Kovalainen was brave enough to take his lead back, almost hijacked by Hamilton before they ran into sweeping Becketts corner. Kimi had a really good start too, he was quick off the line as Lewis and looked eager to pass through the middle, but the gap inside between Heikki and Webber closed in on Kimi and he had no choice but to go back on the left and get past Webber into turn 1. So far so good for Kimi. He looked strong. But the McLarens' looked stronger...well, one of them did. Heikki unfortunately couldn't put his pole to use today but kept his momentum up in the end. Honda and Barrichello were a delight to see on the pdoium, how long has it been Rubens!? He dedicated his 3rd place to his son Eduardo, how sweet. The guy to miss out on the points, Alonso, did do a good job but even Nakajima looked just as good to recover from 15th at the beginning.

Coulthard, oh poor Coulthard. He didn't even get to complete one full lap in his last British GP and spun out with Vettel's Torro Rosso! And Webber completely lost his handy front row position and also spun out soon after being passed by Kimi. And if that was enough, Massa began spinning but managed to recover as well as Webber, and they tried to fight back through the field. Massa wasn't as energetic this year at Silverstone, he did more spinning than much overtaking and found it really difficult to keep the car straight as there was so much aquaplaning. Unfortunately, as if that wasn't enough to worry about for Ferrari, the Red team had to go and ruin Kimi's chance to fight for victory later on...Now some will say that it was a team decision, meaning Kimi was also part of the decision to remain on those tyres. This is fine. This is a driver trusting his team. However, he doesn't have all the information as they do on the pitwall.

My Dad happened to stay and watch the race with me during his lunch break from work, but as Dad always chatters on and still can't get the name of the drivers right (he confuses Massa and Alonso, and he still doesn't get that Lewis and Kimi are in different cars!), so I couldn't follow the first stint clearly, I apologise if I'm missing out anything significant in my comments All I know is, Kimi was keeping in touch with the McLarens' and soon after Lewis passed Heikki for the lead I knew the race was going to be down between Lewis and Kimi. And it looked set that way, while Kimi set the fastest lap of the race (yay! Kimi's scored the 6th most consecutive fastest laps, just one behind Ascari in Formula One history ) and was catching Lewis. It was kinda on and off, exactly like the weather. And boy did it pour down again later. Surprisingly, Kimi pit stopped along with Lewis on the same lap whereas I thought he'd stay out longer. However, I was more worried about another pit collision between the two when they were finished. Thankfully that didn't happen, but in hindsight it may as well have happened because Ferrari, being the complete clueless tacticians they are without Ross Brawn, didn't fuel Kimi more and didn't give him new intermediate tyres like McLaren did with Lewis. This was a costly mistake from Ferrari and quite literally threw Kimi's chance for a good podium out the window.

Kimi kept his game up though, despite having to struggle with the new rain pouring down and he was sliding in every corner. It was TERRIFYING for me, to sit tight and never look away from the screen, hoping not to see Kimi off the track or in the barriers. He and the team decided to wait it out with the old tyres, frustratingly, until the next round of scheduled pit stops. I think Kimi did a good job to finish 4th after this, managing to overtake Alonso nicely with about 8 laps to go. He could have easily finished out of the points when struggling earlier on. He did go off twice later in the race once it poured down massively again, and so many others spun out such as Kubica. So, Kimi missed out on a podium but he scored 5 vital points again. He is now level with Lewis and Felipe in the championship with 48 points. It's not a disaster, but today was extremely annoying because Ferrari could have done so much better. Now McLaren have benefitted from Ferrari's slump and have managed to bounce back from disappointing weekends in Canada and France. The weather was completely bizarre though, everyone here kept going on about the good old British wet weather but seriously, this time of year it's usually very hot and sunny like it was last year. Ferrari didn't do so well, we got beaten quite bad today but I blame global warming!

The race was brilliant, there were the moves from Nick Heidfeld passing two cars and some other cool ones thanks to the wet, and it had a lot of drama and twists and turns. It was exhausting to watch, so I can't imagine how it was for the drivers. Kudos to them for putting on a great show. But dag nabit - we've lost another race. I haven't heard what Kimi has to say yet but as ever, I'm sure he's quite philosophical about it and is grateful to have finished the race. He will be very disappointed though as he looked strong and promising at the start, and through no fault of his own it all went down hill and then Lewis had to come and lap him...ouchie.

Alas, F1 is a team sport so I won't be too critical of Ferrari. Kimi and the team have won races together, and they have lost races together. They just need to come back fully focused and confident that they can win, as long as everything works well together it should be fine. I was saying yesterday Kimi would be fine - he was fine and looked finer than I thought. So that's encouraging for me and it's also encouraging to hear Kimi think similarly - "We win and we lose as a team. Sometimes we make the wrong decisions. But I don't complain to the team and they don't complain to me." I hope you all enjoyed the race no matter who won it and I'll get on with the usual website duties now, after having written this. Kimi achieved some nice results from today though, 31 career fastest laps, breaking into the 500 margin of career points with 504, and of course beating Michael Schumacher with 6 consecutive fastest laps in history, one away from matching Ascari. I know he doesn't care for statistics and all that, but I, as a loyal fan, do. He'll win again soon enough, no doubt about it! Keep Flying Kimi and keep your heads high and bright dear fans! I promise you will find a picture of Kimi's big smile

| Race Quotes - Interview with Kimi

Q. That looked a very difficult race?

Kimi Raikkonen: We only really made one mistake, which was to choose the wrong tyres. We didn't really expect it to start raining so at the first pit stop we kept the old tyres. So, until that point we had the speed and the car to win the race. But that mistake cost us unfortunately, but at least we scored some points. It wasn't as competitive as the car could have done, but it definitely could have been better.

Q. Did you suggest to the team to change the tyres?

KR: No, it was the team's decision. Everyone is involved with the team so we make the decisions together. Sometimes you get it right, but unfortunately today there was one of those times we didn't. It could have gone in any direction and we had a very good speed at that point. But at that point it started to rain and the tyres were pretty old already so there was nothing to do.

Q. The championship is now very close at the top. What do you expect from the second part of the season?

KR: The last four races haven't been easy for me especially. We haven't had one good race. The last race we had a good speed but unfortunately I had a problem with the car, so if you look after all those things not scoring in two races and not really having a perfect race in the next two, we are still tied in the championship lead so it is not too bad. I am pretty sure we have a car to win races, there are many races to go and we just need to push hard. I think once we get everything running smoothly we should be up there winning races.

Q. In the early stages of the race you were quicker than Hamilton. Was the Ferrari the best car on the track today, if you ignore the situation with the tyres?

KR: I always believe we had a good car. It is not that our car is suddenly bad. We made one bad decision with the tyres and it cost us a lot. We had a very good speed until that point and it was easy going. Unfortunately it was just bad luck.

Q. Now there are three drivers tied at the top of the championship, does this mark a fresh beginning for your title ambitions?

KR: Like I said before, the last four races haven't been easy. I had two non-finishes and okay, the last race we had a good speed but a small problem. Here we couldn't get it right, so we are still tied in the lead. It could have been much worse after those four races. We know we have a good speed but we just need to get the weekend going smoothly and things in order. There are many races to go. Even though it has been difficult in the last few races, I think we are in a good position and we have a good speed so we shouldn't get too worried about it.

Q. You mentioned the mistake with the tyres, but even on new intermediates the car wasn't quick. Why was that?

KR: I was just behind people. We fuelled the car until the end so we were pretty heavy on that point. Also with the rain I went off a few times, once at full speed after the bridge. I just got aquaplaning and luckily got back on the circuit, so I was pretty sure the car was not in the best shape any more. We got it back and it was difficult conditions, and I am sure with the same decision with the tyres we would have been okay and able to fight for the win. Sometimes it goes like this.

Q. Championship-wise are you annoyed, or relieved that it could have been worse?

KR: Like I said the last four races have not been exactly as we want. But we are still in the lead, so it could have been much more worse. I am not worried about it, I am sure we can get where we want. We just need to get it right at the next race and then we will go from there.

Q. Did you do a better job here than the team?

KR: No, we win and we lose as a team. Sometimes we make the wrong decision and we need to learn from those. I don't complain to the team and they don't complain to me. I could easily have said to choose other tyres or keep these tyres on, but it is teamwork and sometimes we cannot get it right. We just need to learn from that.

Q. When you showed you didn't have the pace of Hamilton after the pit stop, did you ask to change again like Alonso?

KR: No. In the end we expected the rain to stop quickly and when it didn't we decided to come in. We were losing too much time, but it is easy to say afterwards that we should have changed all the way back. First of all we didn't expect to have rain and then we only expected it to last a few minutes. In the end we got back to fourth place. It was a disappointing race, but we still got good points and are tied in the lead of the championship so we didn't lose anything.

Q. Can you describe for us the fight with Fernando Alonso at the end?

KR: It was nice. It is always nice to fight and it was important points for me, but I didn't want to risk too much. For Fernando he doesn't have anything to lose so he can take more risks. So I wanted to for sure get one extra point and in the end I got past him, so that was good.

Q. What happened at the start?

KR: I got a very good start and I was planning to go between Heikki and Mark, but Mark came on the left and I had nowhere to go. Hamilton got a good start from fourth place and went past everybody, and I really didn't have anywhere to go. I had good speed but had to back off.

Ferrari Team Quotes

Kimi Raikkonen - 4th: "I am disappointed, but I am equally aware that things could have been much worse. We had the possibility to win the race but we made a mistake at the first pit stop, keeping the same set of tyres, because we expected the track conditions to improve. It was a joint decision: we are a team and we win or lose together. Things are not going too well for me at the moment, given all that happened in the last few races, but I am leading the championship, even if it is on equal terms with Felipe and Lewis. We know we have a great potential, but we have to put everything in place to get the most out of it."

Felipe Massa - 13th: "This Silverstone weekend is one to be wiped out. On Friday I had an accident, yesterday there was the problem in qualifying and today a series of mistakes at all levels. We have to look ahead, because there is still a very long way to go in the championship and once again, we've seen that it only takes one result to turn the situation around...

Stefano Domenicali: "A Sunday to forget as quickly as possible in terms of the result, although we must remember certain elements of this weekend, as there were mistakes made that we cannot afford to repeat. We could have won this race with Kimi but we made a key mistake at the first pit stop, choosing to stay on the same set of tyres. The rain did not ease off and lasted longer and our drivers - Felipe had also gone for the same choice - found themselves in difficulty. With hindsight it's easy to say we should have changed tyres, but Formula One is not an exact science: sometimes strategic choices pay off and sometimes they don't...

| Race Videos - Start, Massa Spins, Lewis Overtakes Heikki, Kimi & Webber Spin, Kimi Overtakes Alonso

Controversy was in Kimi's day even before the race started. Human nature is a funny thing sometimes. One guy is doing his job as a photographer (and it can be very irritating for the subject who is a person) and the other is trying to do his job but is interrupted. A photographer tries to get a shot of Kimi preparing for the race, however the Iceman doesn't seem in the mood...

That was pretty odd. Damn. Kimi was quite annoyed at that guy being right in his face while he's doing his business. But he probably didn't expect the photographer to fall over like that. But it went both ways, the guy was in his face, stepping on his stuff, and Kimi didn't like it. Also, Mark Arnall (Kimi's trainer next to him) seems to have got annoyed too, saying "oi, mind the stuff", the exact moment Kimi looked up. The photographer was leaning on Kimi's race stuff.

It's negative coverage of the world champion, unnecessarily provoked by a photographer who doesn't know whee the limit is. Kimi's not a jerk. He's the most composed and laid back guy I've ever seen and I don't even know him. If Kimi is a jerk for pushing this guy, he would have done far worse to Lewis Hamilton for crashing into him in the pit lane of the 2008 Canadian GP. But he didn't.

LEAVE RAIKKONEN ALONE.

2008 Grand Prix of Britain, Qualifying - Kimi 3rd

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:36:27 GMT

| Saturday Qualifying - Kovalainen Takes Maiden Pole as Hamilton Messes Up, Webber P2, Kimi P3!

Heikki Kovalainen claimed his first Formula One pole position with a commanding performance at Silverstone.

The McLaren driver beat surprise qualifying star, Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber, to the top spot in British Grand Prix qualifying, while McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton only managed fourth on home ground behind Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.

Kovalainen, who scored the first pole of his car racing career at Silverstone in Formula Renault seven years ago, took provisional pole with his first Q3 run, and although that time was beaten by Webber, Raikkonen and Hamilton, the Finn responded with a 1:21.049 - reclaiming pole position by over half a second.

Behind Kovalainen, the remarkable Webber beat Raikkonen to the outside front row spot, securing Red Bull's best ever qualifying position.

Hamilton went off the road at Priory on his first Q3 lap and was then nearly 0.8 seconds slower than Kovalainen on his next attempt, leaving him in a disappointing fourth place.

Championship leader Felipe Massa also had a troubled qualifying, with a mistake in Q3 leaving him only ninth on the grid....(read full qualifying report here)

Pos  Driver        Team                 Q1        Q2        Q3       Laps
 1.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes     1:19.957  1:19.597  1:21.049  15
 2.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault     1:20.982  1:19.710  1:21.554  16
 3.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              1:20.370  1:19.971  1:21.706  18
 4.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     1:20.288  1:19.537  1:21.835  13
 5.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber           1:21.022  1:19.802  1:21.873  16
 6.  Alonso        Renault              1:20.998  1:19.992  1:22.029  15
 7.  Piquet        Renault              1:20.818  1:20.115  1:22.491  19
 8.  Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1:20.318  1:20.109  1:23.251  16
 9.  Massa         Ferrari              1:20.676  1:20.086  1:23.305  16
10.  Kubica        BMW Sauber           1:20.444  1:19.788            12
11.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault     1:21.224  1:20.174            14
12.  Glock         Toyota               1:20.893  1:20.274            14
13.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1:20.584  1:20.531            16
14.  Trulli        Toyota               1:21.145  1:20.601            13
15.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota      1:21.407  1:21.112            14
16.  Barrichello   Honda                1:21.512                       9
17.  Button        Honda                1:21.631                      11
18.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      1:21.668                       6
19.  Sutil         Force India-Ferrari  1:21.786                       9
20.  Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari  1:21.885                       8

Yay!!!! Kimi No.1! Kimi No.1! Well, he isn't on pole but his effort was enough to make me cheer out loud. What a session! And what a mess from Lewis, dear oh dear. Forget that, well done to the Finns! Heikki did a superb, clean and quick job all day and was rewarded with a well deserved pole position. Kimi was indeed struggling with something, supposedly the cross winds however it seems he is a few laps heavier on fuel than those infront of him. But, he did his homework and managed to overcome the majority of his issues by going fastest for a brief moment. I threw my fist in the air in celebration because I knew it was a result of hard work. He really gave his best shot, so that's all we can ask for. The Ferraris, surprisingly, aren't as competitive as we all thought and poor Massa is lingering in 9th place on the grid. The McLarens were stronger in qualifying last year too, but it's clear that they've closed the gap and perhaps are even stronger all together on qualifying pace again. BMW and Toyota also aren't as quick here, but Renault and the Red Bulls with their Renault engines are doing much better. What a great result for Mark Webber, a pity though that his teammate Coulthard is down in 11th, but that too looks good for tomorrow. I assume Kimi will be ahead of Webber by the first round of pitstops anyway, if not the first few laps.

In the press conference, Kimi said that his first attempt in Q3 wasn't good because of the cross winds then it became much better for his second go luckily and he pushed as much as he could. He also said the car felt much better then than it did all weekend. So this is very promising for tomorrow!

I can't wait for the race and feel even more guilty that I won't be at the track tomorrow, but Kimi's looking in a strong position so whatever happens, enjoy it! I'm sure Lewis will keep the crowds at Silverstone entertained, he might even give them a closer look in the gravel tomorrow, you never know. And on that bombshell, I'll let my arrogance and dislike for him end here because it can alway turn around, especially with the weather intruding on things like it did earlier today. But I'm sure those clouds won't get in the way of our Iceman...Keep Flying Kimi!

| Qualifying Quotes - Kimi Happy Despite Missing Out On Front Row

"Comparing to yesterday it has been much better," said Raikkonen. "Yesterday was really difficult so we put quite a lot of effort to try and sort my car out, and it seems to have worked okay. We are not exactly where we want to be, but nobody knows how much fuel everyone is running. Tomorrow we will only know how fast we were today.

"It was pretty good today. I was happy with the car. The last run in Q3 was quite difficult but the second one was much better. P3 is still okay if you look where the other are in terms of who is ahead of me in the championship."

"From the test the car was good and yesterday was difficult for some reason. We changed the car a bit today. In last qualifying there was a lot of wind and it made it tricky in some places. You can expect that, sometimes it hurts you more, and if you can get it right in those moments it can pay off. I am happy with car and in race we should have a pretty good car."

Kimi Raikkonen - 3rd: "Third is not the result we were hoping for, but it's not to be sneezed at, as we always have to take into consideration that the final score only comes tomorrow, when we have worked out what fuel loads the other drivers have. Compared to yesterday, the situation is definitely better.

"We worked a lot on the car set-up and, especially in Q3 the balance wasn't bad. There was a lot of wind, which made it hard to fully understand the track because the conditions were changing all the time. In race trim, we have a good car and I think tomorrow I can get a good result. The rain? We saw this morning that we are also competitive in the wet, so we are ready for any eventuality. Well done to Heikki for his first pole position."

Felipe Massa - 9th: "It's a real shame ending up ninth on the grid because of a problem with my pit stop. I lost so much time as the mechanics had trouble changing the right rear wheel and I was unable to start my second run. I think I could have done a good time, maybe not enough to take pole but at least good enough for a place on the front two rows...Tomorrow I can definitely expect to be fighting all race long to move up the order and I will do all I can to bring home a good result: but it won't be easy."

Luca Baldisserri: "This is definitely not a pleasing result, both in terms of performance and of the work of the team. What happened at Felipe's pit stop, which incidentally has nothing in common with what happened on the grid at the Monaco Grand Prix, will have to be investigated thoroughly as we cannot let it happen again...

Extra Press Conference Quotes

Q. Kimi, how happy were you after testing. What sort of mood were you in when you came here?

KR: I think we were pretty happy with the car but coming here, after the test, yesterday the morning started well and then in the afternoon I was nowhere, so it was a bit of a mystery, how we lost all the speed but we managed to find it back. We worked pretty hard with the guys on the set-up and got it back more or less where we wanted to be. We would rather be in first place but I would say that qualifying has not been our strongest point, especially the first and second ones. I thought that we had pretty good speed in the third qualifying. It depends a lot on everybody's fuel levels but I think it's going to be OK.

Q. Are you therefore suggesting that the car will be better on full tanks or is it better on fuller tanks?

KR: For me it's been (that) all year. I'm pretty happy every time we get into the last qualifying when I put in more fuel because we always seem to find more grip and the balance seems to get better. Maybe that's why we don't get the best out of the tyres in first and second qualifying but as long as you get through those it doesn't really matter where you are.

Q. Are you quite confident for wet or dry tomorrow?

KR: Yeah, this morning we seemed to be fast in either condition. I think our car is normally pretty strong over the race distance, so it's a bit of a similar situation as to what it was here last year. Hopefully we are OK. I'm not sure but I think we should be.

Q. (Heikki Kulta - Turun Sanomat) Kimi, there is a McLaren in front of you. Does it make any difference that it's Heikki instead of Lewis?

KR: It's better for me. Point-wise Heikki is a bit far away, so even if he cannot beat him, it's not such a big thing, so it's good for him and better for me that it's Heikki than the other guy.

| Video - Full Qualifying Press Conference, Italian TV Interview with Kimi, Hamilton Goes Off & Ruins Chance, Kovalainen Takes Pole

Red Bulletin Kimi Special: Rebel With A Cause

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:58:48 GMT

I found this, as occasionally I read the F1 Red Bulletins, and today's issue has a feature on Kimi called 'Rebel with a Cause' (download here). It's funny and fresh, talks about Kimi's wild side and asks him some questions I'm sure most of us having been dying to find an answer to. For example, Kimi says he's seen most videos about him on YouTube, such as his infamous drunken slip off the boat. I wonder if he's ever watched my Grand Prix weekend highlight videos? I need to ask him that one day... anyway, Enjoy!

Note I've written out the word-for-word script of this interview below, including the picture captions. Please do acknowlegde I spent over an hour typing this out and would appreciate a credit source back to this entry if you wish to share it on your personal blog or fansite. You're able to copy and paste the actual text from the pdf file, however for some reason it wasn't allowing me to do so which is why I wrote it out, to get it to you as soon as possible! Thank you.

What does Kimi Raikkonen do away from the track? One minute he’s Peter Fonda in Easy Rider, the next he’s Bill Murray in Stripes. But the character Kimi really wants to be is Captain Jack Sparrow. He talks to Adam Hay-Nicholls about his life at home, his big screen alter-ego and his maverick spirit.

Kimi Raikkonen is different to most other racing drivers – and certainly different to most Formula One World Champions. Michael Schumacher may race bikes these days and Jacques Villeneuve may occasionally strum the guitar, but neither has anywhere near has the breadth of extra-curricular interests that the Iceman has. Nor do they have as many toys…

You’ve got two amazing Walz Hardcore motorcycles that were custom-made for you. How involved were you in designing them?

Kimi: I was quite involved with the first one, the black one. The new one looks similar – I just told them to paint it red and put some Ferrari logos on it. There are some subtle differences under the skin too. I love them to bits, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought them. They’ve been exhibited at a few shows, but they’re for riding. I take them out to Switzerland and I ride to Monza every year with my friends. They have similar tastes in bikes to me.

Both bikes have ‘Iceman’ written across the fuel tank. If you park one of them outside a shop don’t you worry that there will be a crowd of fans standing around it when you get back?

Kimi: No no, I never just leave they because they’ve got no key so anyone could just take them! I have to park them in gated or guarded carparks or else they will disappear. Besides, I don’t use them to go shopping, I ride them simply to ride. So we’ll go off on a road trip for a couple of days and I won’t leave the saddle. I like to go over the mountains in Italy and let rip along lakeside roads. You can’t get better than that.

At the Amber fashion show charity auction you paid 200,000 Euros for Sharon Stone’s Corvette Stingray. What other toys do you keep in your garage?

Kimi: I’ve got some other bikes, probably 10 in total. Mostly motocross bikes. I have some other cars, including a Ferrari Enzo – my only Ferrari – and skidoos. I have a Hummer and a few Cadillacs including an Escalade pick-up. I’ve just got a new Fiat 500, which I really like. And when I went to see a DTM race a while back I took a fancy to the Mercedes DTM car and bought that.

Your first car was a Lada right?

Kimi: Yeah I sold it a long time ago to a friend. Ladas are good cars - they never break down.

Did you ever try to take it racing?

Kimi: No, but I did something similar with a Beetle. I did some racing with cars you can bash into eachother – not banger racing exactly, it was on sand. I had this Beetle kitted out with a roll cage, then I rolled it four times or something and it didn’t work anymore! Yeah, I pretty much killed it.

And you own a Mini don’t you?

Kimi: Yeah, a very old one. I’ve been meaning to fix it up for years, but I just haven’t found the time.

What’s missing from your garage?

Kimi: Nothing. Instead, I need to be getting rid of some stuff! The thing is, I don’t want to get something and not use it. I use all of these toys all the time, especially the motocross bikes. If I find I don’t need something, I’ll sell it. And often it’s easier just to rent.

Do you get to play ice-hockey much these days?

Kimi: I play every winter. I grew up with ice-hockey, played it all the time as a kid and I like to keep in practice. I don’t have one team who I’m support massively but I have a lot of friends who play in the NHL and in Finland.

Don’t you just watch it for the fights?

Kimi: Well those are of course a bonus! You don’t see so much of it in Finland because they penalize you heavily for it But the fights are part of the game, I think, and it spices it up a bit. I went to see the Olympic finals when they were in Turin and I’ve been to see the NHL in the States. I wish I could get over there more often, but it’s just finding the time. I try to see the matches on TV, but in Europe they’re shown at 3am. That’s not a problem if I’m at home and I’ve nothing to get up for, but on a grand prix weekend I can’t really stay up. And a lot of the hotels we stay in don’t have the channels.

You say you played a lot as a kid. But what were you like at school? Teacher’s pet?

Kimi: No, bad! Not good…I hated school – I was interested in different things. I only liked sport and lessons where you did practical things.

Aside from F1, what sport do you most enjoy?

Kimi: Definitely snowmobile racing. But this winter it was tough because there was no snow except in Lapland. And it takes a while to get there. If I could do it in Switzerland, I could do it every day, but it’s illegal there.

Why on earth do you live there then?

Kimi: No, I like it, but for sure, if you talk about motor racing it’s difficult. It’s very strict there but they they let you do motocross and it’s the same in Italy where, in a lot of places, skidoos are banned. For some reason, it’s a difficult sport to do. Finland is one of the only places where you don’t get shit for it.

It’s pretty dangerous though. Have you ever broken anything?

Kimi: I’ve been injured many times, but not so bad that I couldn’t walk afterwards. For sure, I have had massive bruises on my back and everything, but so far I haven’t broken anything. As long as I can get back up and jump in a Formula One car, that’s the important thing.

You’ve done a year of compulsory military service too. I’m guessing you weren’t so keen on all that discipline.

Kimi: Yeah I did a lot of things there that I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t like the fact that you couldn’t do this and had to do that…

Sounds a bit like Mclaren…

Kimi: [Laughing] Yeah, when I look back on my year in the army it was a good time, but when I was there I hated it because I couldn’t go where I wanted and I’d get shit from people. I still laugh with my friends about some of the stuff we got up to.

What mischief did you get up to? Were you lke Bill Murray in Stripes – the joker of the regiment?

Kimi: Yeah something like that. I probably shouldn’t go into too much detail! Anyway, I was 21 then and I was still in the army when I did my first F1 test with Sauber in 2000.

What did you shoot?

Kimi: Nobody so far!

No, I mean what weaponry?

Kimi: We all had AK47s. I’ve actually shot quite a different few types of gun.

I remember at the Red Bull party in Sao Paulo last year, you celebrated your title by getting behind the bar and making everyone drinks. So what cocktail do you most enjoy making?

Kimi: Not really cocktails. I’ll choose shots, thanks. Or maybe a Vodka and cola.

Have you seen that YouTube clip where you fell off your yacht?

Kimi: I’ve probably seen all of my YouTube clips. I’ve been involved with all of them certainly! Yeah, well, there are a lot of things that don’t end up on there, and that’s a good thing!

If you could be any character from any movie, who would you be?

Kimi: Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean [Kimi roars with laughter]. He seems to know how to have a good time. I might need to drink a lot of rum to get into the role! I love movies like this.

If a time machine were invented, where would you travel to?

Kimi: If you’re talking about racing, then a time that was more fun, like the 1970s. I could have enjoyed it. And before that, maybe the Wild West.

Finally, do you think you’re an easy person to interview?

Kimi: I don’t mind what people think too much. If they ask nice questions then yes, but for sure if they ask stupid questions I won’t answer and they will think I’m a dickhead. But it goes both ways. If everyone’s nice to eachother it’s much easier.

Picture captions: Mark of a Champion - Six reasons why we love Kimi...

1. Well-dressed Kimi

In a bid for anonymity, Kimi likes to conduct his business in a gorilla suit. He chose to wear the costume for a speed boat race, entering under his nom de guerre, James Hunt. Raikkonen and two friends competed in the Hanko Poker run, a society event where crews speed around the Finnish port, collecting poker cards that they play with. However when the ape tried to moor the boat, the skipper yelled “Kimi, don’t tie it like that,” and proceeded to give him a lesson in knots. Cover blown.

2. Inappropriate Kimi

It was meant to be the glorious swansong of the man Kimi would succeed at Ferrari. Michael Schumacher’s last race, at Interlagos in 2006, saw the German presented with a trophy by Pele. All the drivers turned up to watch – apart from Kimi. Moments later, ITV’s Martin Brundle found the Finn hanging out beside his car. Why had he missed Schumi’s farewell? “I was having a shit,” he disclosed. Well, he was number two on the grid. (YouTube: Funny + Kimi + Brazil)

3. Gambling Kimi

The Finn’s performance at the 2005 European Grand Prix left all his rivals in the shade. But one small mistake flat-spotted the right-front tyre, and it would cost him dear. With Fernando Alonso close behind, Kimi and his team faced a tough decision: pit and settle for six points, or stay out and go for broke. Sadly, that’s exactly what the McLaren suspension did on the very last lap when the tyre failed spectacularly. Kimi very nearly hit Jenson Button’s BAR as he spun down the straight in a shower of carbon and rubber. No points, but no regrets either. (YouTube: Kimi + Nurburgring + 2005)

4. Knife-throwing Kimi

German TV executives realized that, if they were to get Kimi on their programme, they might need to rethink the standard sit-down chat show format. Instead, they set up a circus big top-tent and gave Kimi a motocross bike to ride infront of the audience. But the piece de resistance was when he attempted to throw a set of stake knives at a member of the audience – almost. He may have been a great shot in the Finnish army, but his knife skills are a bit rusty. (YouTube: Kimi + Circus)

5. Kamikaze Kimi

Suzuka ’05 saw Raikkonen’s most impressive performance to date. He started 17^th on the grid and fought his way through the field. Giancarlo Fisichella thought he had 10 points when he started the final lap. But Kimi had been planning a dramatic finale. As they raced down the straight to the first turn, Kimi got a good tow, went as far to the outside and he could, rode the rev limiter, flickered right and shot right cross the front of the Renault, snatching the lead with less than a minute and a half to spare. (YouTube: Japan + Kimi + Fisichella)

6. Party Kimi

Raikkonen first gained tabloid notoriety when he showed a London lap dancer the real reason he wears a six point harness. He lost his driving license in Budapest in 2006, but this had nothing to do with a road traffic incident. Kimi had been a Red Bull boat party and was swinging his bag above his head, showering the VIP room with cash and cards. Fortunately everything, including his passport, was returned the next morning. But Kimi’s finest drunken moment was the yacht party where our hero tried to throw something at the crowd below, but lost his balance, falling off the fly deck and onto his head. (YouTube: Kimi + Yacht + Fall)