Kimi – Life in the Fast Lane

It’s been a while since we’ve had a good article to read on the world champion, it seems people have forgotten already that Kimi’s King, but hopefully he’ll give a reminder this weekend at Silverstone. Here are some snippets of this long article from the Telegraph called Life in the Fast Lane, on Kimi Raikkonen. Enjoy!

Räikkönen, at that stage neck-and-neck with Hamilton in the
championship with two wins each, walked over to his rival, and –
instead of waving his fists, as other drivers might have done – calmly
tapped the 23-year-old on the shoulder and helpfully pointed out the
red light, as if saying to a child, ‘If you see one of those, it means
you have to stop.’ Räikkönen later told me, ‘I never get involved in
arguments.’ His unflappable style has won him the reputation as the
coolest man in his sport.

Räikkönen, though, looks to the late James Hunt, the eccentric,
charismatic British ace and budgerigar breeder whose world title in
1976 came three years before Räikkönen was born. Hunt lived life
flat-out, loved tennis, played the piano, dated glamorous women and
would often grace formal events in bare feet. Critics accused him of
not taking motor racing seriously. Is the same true of Räikkönen? ‘I
don’t have heroes,’ he says, ‘but Hunt had a different way about him. I
think that that was a nice way. He did the good things he was supposed
to do, but he just lived in a different way to many others.’

In January 2005 a story appeared about how Räikkönen stunned onlookers
by cavorting with a lap dancer at a club in Mayfair, before launching
into his own strip show. (Heikki Kulta, Finland’s pre-eminent Formula
One journalist and a family friend of Räikkönen, dismisses such
incidents: ‘Kimi is living like a normal Finn!’) Ron Dennis, McLaren’s
team boss, failed to see the funny side and wrote to Räikkönen,
upbraiding him. In life as in engineering, Dennis believes in zero
tolerance. ‘That’s Ron’s way,’ Räikkönen laughs. ‘Maybe he tries to
push people to do a better job, but it didn’t especially work for me. I
don’t need anybody pushing me. I know if I am doing the best I can or
not.’

Räikkönen has always maintained that his personal life is no one’s
business, and has no bearing on his abilities as a racing driver. But
he admits that things got ‘quite bad’ with McLaren. ‘The newspapers
tried to create a fight between me and the team. But now, maybe because
I won the championship or because Ferrari leaves me to live how I want,
it’s better. I don’t mind if people write things about me. I don’t have
anything that would hurt me enough to make me change my life. ‘What I
enjoy, and what they [Ferrari] respect,’ he continues, ‘is that as long
as I do my work and they don’t have anything to complain about, they
leave my private life alone. It is not like there’s someone behind my
back all the time, asking, "What time do you get to sleep?"

Räikkönen’s fans are drawn to his courage and raw
talent. ‘He’s as brave as a lion, and on his day there is no one
quicker,’ says Kevin Garside, The Daily Telegraph’s motor sport
correspondent. Yet he remains less well loved than the boyish,
personable Hamilton or the fiery Alonso. ‘He could be more effusive,’
Garside adds.

Räikkönen has failed to win Finland’s
equivalent of Sports Personality of the Year for the past three years –
most recently losing out to a cross-country skier and a javelin
champion. Not that he is unpopular at home. But in a nation that has
produced two other Formula One world champions – Keke Rosberg and Mika
Häkkinen – and many leading rally drivers, Räikkönen’s achievements are
perhaps taken for granted, even though Kulta insists that ‘Kimi is by
far the best racing driver Finland has ever produced.’

Räikkönen lives in Finland (just outside Helsinki) and
Switzerland (in Wollerau near Zurich) with his wife of four years,
Jenni Dahlman, a former fashion model and Miss Scandinavia, and their
dogs, Ajax, an alsatian, and Pepe, a Jack Russell. His life seems
modest by F1 standards. While rival drivers amass property portfolios
and stock up on sports cars, yachts and jets, Räikkönen drives nothing
more ostentatious than a Fiat 500. ‘It’s easy to park and nice to
drive,’ he says.

At home, he does the cooking:
reindeer meat, pasta and ‘a lot of rice and fish’. He shops for
ingredients himself, carefully avoiding the supermarket crowds. After
dark, he passes the long winter nights with friends, bonding over
Smirnoff and karaoke.

‘Kimi is extremely talented,’ Bernie Ecclestone, who controls F1, tells
me. ‘The trouble is, he’s not as dedicated as Ayrton Senna was, or as
Lewis Hamilton is, for whom it is the end of the world if something
goes wrong. I don’t think Kimi is prepared to give up what Senna gave
up; Senna would live in a one-bedroom flat in London in order to race.
But Kimi is his own man, and that’s that.’

Räikkönen advanced into Formula One via Formula
Renault, a feeder tier. After only one year, in 2000 he became test
driver to the Sauber F1 team. So impressed was the team boss, Peter
Sauber, with Räikkönen’s pace that he signed up the Finn as a full-time
race driver, even though Räikkönen was the least experienced racer ever
to compete in Formula One, with only 23 starts on his cv. He finished
sixth in his debut race and 10th in his first world championship. Then
he joined McLaren, but seemed dogged by bad luck.

‘It’s
not luck,’ Chris Dyer, Räikkönen’s race engineer at Ferrari, says.
‘There is no luck involved in building and running a reliable race car.
The whole objective is to get rid of luck.’

Ferrari are confident it will deliver the goods at
this weekend’s British Grand Prix – Räikkönen won the race last year –
although getting it to perform at its best is a complex business.
Räikkönen’s team of dedicated engineers measure the performance of both
car and driver in hundreds of different ways. But no amount of
data-crunching can replace feeling your way around a circuit by the
seat of your pants. The team therefore relies on Räikkönen’s own
personal ‘feedback’.

‘Kimi is very good at
identifying how to make the car go faster,’ Dyer says. ‘Sometimes it’s
not clear what the right solution is. We have simulation tools that can
help us, but ultimately what counts is what happens on the track.’

Dyer worked with Michael Schumacher, who won five of
his seven world titles with Ferrari. ‘Kimi is more relaxed than
Michael, and less concerned about technical details. If we turn up with
a new part, Kimi will say, "Let’s throw it on and see what happens";
Michael would have wanted to know what the simulation tests said. What
you see is what you get with Kimi: he never plays games. But on the
track, he is very strong mentally. He is not affected by pressure.’

I
ask Räikkönen what he has learnt from Formula One. ‘Be yourself,’ he
says. ‘If you try to be someone else, it won’t work. Whatever you do,
you are not going to make everyone happy.’ He sees no reason to change
his working methods, which seem to be reaping such rewards. ‘When you
don’t need to think too much, it is usually the right way,’ he smiles.
‘Sometimes when you have difficult races and you think about it and you
try hard, it just gets worse and worse.”As long as I enjoy racing, I will keep doing it,’ Räikkönen tells me.
‘After that, I don’t have any plans. One day I want to have a family
and kids. But it is not the right time now. I am travelling so much.
When you have kids, it would be nice to see them.’