ZitatKimi Räikkönen is the Most Interesting Man in Formula 1
The Iceman doesn't care about politics—he just wants to race.
“Sometimes in Formula 1 there is politics, and the shit there is stupid,” Kimi Räikkönen says as we sit in the Lotus Formula 1 team's hospitality tent, sheltered from the drizzle that hangs over most of the Canadian Grand Prix weekend. “I was pretty happy to go and do something else.”
The politics Kimi refers to involve his former employer, Ferrari, who wanted to force him out after a 2009 season in which he finished sixth in the driver’s championship and was frequently accused of lacking motivation. It didn’t help matters that Räikkönen’s personal exploits had worn thin in Maranello.
“The Iceman”—he hails from Finland and drives with ice in his veins; the nickname was inevitable—has become famous for, as his team principal at Lotus, Eric Boullier, puts it “doing pretty much whatever he wants.” That sort of attitude doesn’t fly with the Italians. The problem for the Scuderia was that Räikkönen had a contract for 2010 (reported to be upward of $50 million) that would need to be bought out if he couldn’t find a subsequent ride in F1. He says he had “a few options from top teams,” but nothing materialized.
And so he happily went and did something else. The now 33-year-old driver spent two years in the World Rally Championship running limited schedules with backing from Citroën and Red Bull, spending one season with the French marque’s junior team, another managing his own operation. His best finish was a fifth in his debut season. Then, in early 2011, it was announced that he would compete in select rounds of NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series with Kyle Busch Motorsports.
“I had no idea how it was going to be when I went [to NASCAR],” Räikkönen says. “It looks very simple when you watch on TV. You think these cars are built in a shed behind some farm somewhere, but the cars are built very nicely. The finish is impressive when you look closely. It’s not so simple. There’s quite a lot different and you have to have a lot of experience to get good at it.” Kimi competed in two races: one Truck Series event, where he finished 15th, and one Nationwide race, where he finished 27th.
“I really enjoyed the racing because it doesn’t matter if you’re first or 40th, you always find someone to race against,” he says. In addition to the wheel-to-wheel combat that he craves, Räikkönen says that he found the scene in the NASCAR paddock to be far mellower compared to the traveling circus that is Formula 1. He hopes to race here again one day.
His ability to jump from Formula 1 car to WRC racer to Truck Series ride to Nationwide stocker—oh, and we should mention he’s also raced powerboats (dressed as a gorilla), snowmobiles, motocross bikes, and probably dozens of other vehicles that few outside Räikkönen himself are aware of—is unique. The only men who come close to matching the Finn’s love of racing and his ability and willingness to pursue its wildly variant forms are IRL and NASCAR champion Tony Stewart and seven-time MotoGP world champion Valentino Rossi, both of whom have been known to crisscross the world of motorsports, often competing under pseudonyms.
Alan Permane, Lotus’s trackside operations director, has become intimately familiar with the intricacies of Kimi’s abilities in the year and a half the driver has spent with the Enstone, England–based team. And despite the general consensus that Räikkönen simply has talent pouring out his ears, which allows him to jump from ride to ride and instantly go fast, Permane says there’s more to it than that.
“He’s very particular about how he likes his steering and the front of the car set up, and I think that allows him to feel very precisely what grip he’s got,” Permane says. “I suspect that allows him to jump between a Formula 1 car or a rally car or a snowmobile or a motocross bike or whatever he happens to be doing. It’s not just his talent for going quick, it’s his feeling for how much grip is available and what the tires are doing or whatever he’s driving is doing.”
“I cannot explain that I do this and that’s why it goes this way because I don’t think about that,” Räikkönen says, not the slightest bit amused by a question asking how it is, exactly, that he’s so unbelievably quick. “I just know that I want this kind of feeling, and if I get that I know it’s going to be better.”
His interest level waxes and wanes depending on the subject matter, his gaze turning in a number of directions. Lotus tells that one of the things it has done to accommodate its lead driver is minimize the media commitments he seemingly loathes. “I think he genuinely doesn’t like talking in public, he genuinely doesn’t like talking to the press,” Permane says. “Maybe I’d go so far as to say he’s shy, honestly.”
Shyness or no, it’s not difficult to understand why Räikkönen would have a dim view of this aspect of the sport. Each afternoon of the race weekend, Kimi takes a few minutes to answer questions from the media. The jostling begins the moment the team’s press officer gives the assembled crowd the green light. Middle-aged men, in the way that’s considered polite on continental Europe, elbow and shoulder one another in an effort to get their microphones closest to Räikkönen’s mouth—we imagine it’s a scene not unlike if Justin Bieber dropped by an all-girls boarding school. Kimi’s hands are planted firmly in his pockets, his eyes wandering even more than during our time together, and a smile doesn’t cross his face until the session is up and he can return to the team’s trailer. At the Canadian GP, a few journalists attempted to lob bonus questions while Räikkönen walked back to his cocoon, one even grabbing the man’s arm in an effort to get his attention.
“I don’t dislike [that side of the sport], but I want to be myself,” he says. “I think if you are happy with what you do then you will do better. If you try to be something you’re not then it will not work in the long run . . . I’m not here to try to please people, I’m here to do my best.”
And Lotus understands that. Neither Räikkönen nor the team would disclose what is and isn’t permitted in his contract—rallying, motocross training, spelunking, etc.—but Boullier says, “He knows what he can do and what he cannot do. I know the things he’s doing, he’s doing very carefully. The rest is his private life, and if you’re famous, good looking, and financially successful, you can enjoy your life.”
This has been the approach the team has taken in an effort to keep the Finn comfortable since he signed ahead of the 2012 season, even though Räikkönen broke his wrist racing a snowmobile before that year’s preseason testing had even begun. “Nothing is accepted if you get hurt, but you can get hurt falling off the stairs,” Kimi says. “I know that it’s risky, but . . . if you only think that you’re going to get hurt then you cannot do anything.”
At this point in the 2013 season, much of the talk surrounding Räikkönen has focused on which team he’ll drive for next year: Lotus or Red Bull. Pundits have debated the relative merits of Red Bull’s wages and Lotus’s ability to shelter its superstar from the media, but that largely misses the point. Kimi Räikkönen is a racing driver, and if his stint with Ferrari revealed anything about one of Formula 1’s greatest personalities, it’s that he’ll give a team everything he’s got to win a world championship—and then he’ll go do whatever he wants whenever he wants. “I always said I’m here because I like the racing,” he says. “And the day I don’t enjoy it anymore I will walk away.”
an article from July edition of Sportmagazin, it's quite nice just the feedback shit will never die it seems
ZitatAbsolute Räikkkönen
A Vodka Buddhist is the last ball player of F1. Kimi Räikkönen boozes, keeps silent, smokes – and does in other ways as well only that what he wants. Exactly that makes him so popular. An inner view of the world of an extraterrestrial.
It’s only good that Kimi Räikkönen got world champion in 2007, otherwise one couldn’t be sure that he is from this world: With his helmet, his black overall, the incomprehensible mumbling and his strangely beaming eyes, which glow out of his pale face, one could almost think he is an alien.
Kimi Räikkönen is the last straight in Formula 1, a man without chicanes. And he appears like fallen out of time because he hardly speaks and when he does he says his own text and not that what PR adviser have learned him.
His reduction to the essential has become the antithesis of the whole Grand Prix circus. In a microcosm of snobbery the unsettled forest farmer boy from Espoo is the last constant, a relict from good old times when sex was still safe and the racing deadly. “Sometimes I feel like I live in the wrong decade, the 60s and 70s, that would have been my era. There it was only about racing, about having fun and not about self-expression and PR.”
However in the cool but always bankruptcy near Lotus team, the PR department managed to do a stroke of genius which one day will get subject matters at the world’s universities: At Sauber, McLaren, Ferrari and in his rally time Räikkönen attracted attention because he said nothing, seemed boorish, dissed sponsors and refused to give in-depth interviews. They thought he wouldn’t fit in F1 and he would be a bore. At Lotus he doesn’t talk, seems boorish sometimes, disses his sponsors and refuses to give in-depth interviews. And suddenly everybody finds that legendary cool.
Kimi Räikkönen is unbelievable. He is simple and simply natural. And still a complex personality. He is the Iceman, no sonny boy and a first balance tells you instinctively: That guy is a “You-Inc.”
And still in the close circle of friends hardly a driver is as witty, funny and social, so approachable. You will never have heard big words from him about love & peace however he donates – without informing anybody from media – 200 000 Euro for charity in a decision of seconds. Without PR of course. He delivers a message to rivals like Sergio Perez that “somebody should hit him in the face”, he attacks his engineers on the radio when they annoy him – but he calls them in the middle of his holidays and ask unexpectedly if they and their kids are okay. He drives for his team without telling any journalist that they are behind with the payment since nine months. And, as Alex Wurz is remembering a car ride together through Europe, “after two hours he suddenly starts talking and continues for hours.” And Kimi says almost never anything but always “please” and “thanks” which his entourage always amazedly notices. “Also after twelve years as a world star he doesn’t take being flattered by everybody for granted.”
But maybe there is all this contradiction not only because he is fallen out of time but also into a strange place, like the highly gifted musician in the novel “Brother of Sleep”. Räikkönen grew up in the Finnish nowhere of Espoo, father a road worker, mother a public officer, one family house, outhouse in the yard. But endowed with an unbelievable talent, with the body of an artist. Josef Leberer, his fitness coach and mentor in his first F1 year, says that he has “never seen anybody with such talent”, who could move like that. No matter what (foreign) piece of sports equipment you give him, he is in control of it immediately.
And yet he was long time the problem child of the family. Kimi mumbled only, he talked less and most times his two years older brother had to translate to the parents what the kid meant. But a psychiatrist proved vision: “That kid is not retarded but exceptional talented.” Soon, he was in primary school, he said to his mother a sentence that she should never forget: “I will get world champion one day. I just don’t know in which sport.” With subventions from a rich uncle he later went to Oslo for a karting selection and could tell his English mechanics only 3 words: “Okay! Oversteer! Understeer!” This information was enough to get the kart together that he could break all lap records within a few minutes. He found a team and was invited to a race at Monaco, in a kart. There he met for the first time a certain Fernando Alonso. Kimi crashed early and then kept driving on the wrong side of the crash barrier. When he noticed it he simply dragged the kart over the barrier and drove on – he finished third. On this day the mechanic Kalle Jokinen, who was in the scene since many year noted: “That was the best performance that I have ever seen in a kart.”
The rest is history: Räikkönen came from the forth league (!), Formula Renault, directly into Formula 1 with Sauber, to get bought out of his contract by McLaren a year later. At the end of 2006 Ferrari wanted Räikkönen so much that they forced national saint Michael Schumacher into retirement as he didn’t want to take the trouble of having the Finn as a team mate. Straight away he got world champion and after that he increasingly lost interest. “I have become world champion, that was my aim. If I now manage it another time is not that important.” What an antithesis to his best racing driver friend Sebastian Vettel who desires title over title like nymphomaniac. That they get along so well off the track shows that drivers are more differentiated than you would expect. Vettel likes Räikkönen’s straightforwardness and he appreciates that Sebastian doesn’t talk up every badminton match together as a twitter event like Alonso or Hamilton would do.
But this year their friendship will get proven – if Ferrari keeps having problems in qualifying than the championship duel could be Vettel versus Räikkönen. Because the Finn is scoring points incredibly constant – recently for the 24th time in a row: world record! – and the guy makes hardly mistakes. “His feeling for three-dimensional is unbelievable”, ex team mate Alex Wurz is astonished. “He almost never loses a wing in a battle. He has an incredible feeling what’s possible and what not.” In the still Francophile Lotus team (former Renault) he didn’t had it easy at the beginning: They were irritated because he was smoking in meetings and not listening. He prefers to talk at the track. Simulator testing he leaves almost solely for his team mates and his technical feedback is low: “That is not my job.” No wonder that as a successor of the tinkerer Michael Schumacher he had to fail at Ferrari. “The mechanics at Maranello were completely unable to cope with it because nothing came from the driver – and that after all the fussy scientific analyses from Schumacher”, a team insider remembers. Lotus is there, after a time of accustoming, totally different. Team principle Eric Boullier understood that the free spirit needs liberties. After the race in Austin Räikkönen has sent him a text message with words to that effect: “I’m at Los Angeles. So awesome here. I would like to come a day later.” Without attracting attention all sponsor dates that should have happened on this Thursday at Sao Paulo were canceled. They forgave him because he was – like always – honest and didn’t use a mysterious stomach infection or any other excuse.
The question remains if Lotus can still afford Räikkönen in 2014 or if he goes to Red Bull. “There are only a few top drivers and I’m the only one of them without contract”, says Räikkönen confidently. Vettel could live well with Kimi as team mate and he probably would beat him because of his strength in qualifying but as a team they would be a brilliant combination. It is questionable whether Räikkönen, who already during Sauber and rally times promoted the people from Fuschl, would commit to the stress of the PR machinery. Because driving for Red Bull also means: sponsor appearances, interviews, visits at ServusTV. As a new David Coulthard who is available for Red Bull close companies 24 hours a day as an ambassador, he doesn’t fit. So he will stay. Or he retires. Or whatever: A man who lives in the moment will at the end only listen to one: to himself.
Some strange words they used..... maybe just the translation
What is “You-Inc.” ??
yeah there are some words I'm not sure I translated right so if there is more unclear just ask
it means self-employment, having own company. dictionary gave me that translation but probably it's only german expression. maybe Me-Inc better " title="dunno" />
ZitatINSIGHT: Kimi Raikkonen and the Lotus question
Kimi Raikkonen has not won a grand prix since the season opener in Australia. Yet almost by stealth, he headed into the August break as Sebastian Vettel's closest championship challenger. Closest is a relative term and he is a win-and-a-half behind (38 points), so not quite within striking distance. But thanks to remarkable consistency, with his sole triumph backed up by five second places, Raikkonen has to be taken seriously as a title contender.
The question is whether Lotus can add outright speed to its armory. Consistency is a potent weapon, as is being gentler on tires than your rivals, but those qualities alone are not enough.
Only at Silverstone, where Vettel retired while leading and Raikkonen was fifth, has finishing ability alone been enough to close the gap. On the other four occasions the Finn has taken points out of the triple world champion, three of those have come thanks to making fewer pit stops. This is exactly what happened in the last race at the Hungaroring, where Raikkonen held off the quicker Vettel for the runner-up spot behind Lewis Hamilton.
The key to closing that gap regularly is improving qualifying. Raikkonen has made the top 10 qualifying shootout in every race, but averages only sixth fastest. The single-lap pace of the car is around 0.6sec from pole in 2013, although in Hungary, Raikkonen's team-mate, Romain Grosjean, was only a couple of tenths off. Good, but not great.
Arguably, with a better grid position Raikkonen might have won both Germany and Bahrain, transforming the championship picture. Partly, this is down to Raikkonen himself, for – when on-song – Grosjean appears to have stronger qualifying pace and has beaten him on Saturday in two out of the last three races. Effective as Raikkonen is in executing a race to perfection, the work he has to do making up places can prove costly.
The next two events, at Spa and Monza offer some promise. Lotus is very optimistic about Belgium although Italy remains an unknown, but neither is a traditional Red Bull stronghold, so there is an opportunity for Raikkonen to make further inroads. At Spa, the Lotus E21's much-vaunted passive drag reduction system, which redirects airflow once the car hits a certain speed to stall the rear wing, could give the car the extra few tenths it needs to be stronger in qualifying.
“At Spa, we should be good,” says Lotus team principal Eric Boullier. “Monza is a low-downforce package, so it's a bit different. Maybe we could have a good race there because the less downforce you have, the more harsh with the tires you are. So we should still get the benefits from our car design there.”
On the downside, the Lotus-Renault E21 is reaching the end of its development curve. There are some parts in the pipeline, but as trackside operations director Alan Permane points out, now is the time to focus on the new regs.
“We have got some more stuff coming,” he says. “We have some small upgrades for Spa, including a reasonable front wing upgrade. And we have our rear-wing [stalling] device that we'll be looking at. I don't think there will be a great deal more now because we are focused on moving on to 2014 and I think everyone will do that.
“But we can be confident we've got a quick car for the rest of the season. We've clearly got the legs of Ferrari, certainly in the race and in qualifying we were quicker.” Realistically, Raikkonen needs some favors from Red Bull to take the title. Even holding second might prove tricky given that Mercedes is emerging as an ever-stronger force.
2014 – the team's perspective
In between maximizing this year's car and working on next year's, there is constant speculation regarding the guy who has become the Lotus team's talisman and de facto team leader.
Lotus must do everything it can to retain Raikkonen. With the Finn attracting attention from serious teams, notably Red Bull, he is not short of options to jump ship. Boullier describes him as “the key” and with good reason. No magic bullet, there are nonetheless precious few drivers capable of a world championship and Raikkonen is one of only five on the grid to have won it. The ace in his hand is his regular superb race performance. While a Vettel or a Lewis Hamilton would surely do better on Saturdays in a Lotus, there's not a great deal of room for improvement on Kimi's Sunday displays.
Raikkonen's reputation as a super-fast, visceral talent is at best out-of-date and at worst misleading. He is a far more rounded and calculating driver, with his race performances rivaling Alonso for their relentlessness. Raikkonen has a 100 percent finishing record in his 30-race comeback, failing to score only once thanks to his tires falling off a cliff in China last year. That makes him the bedrock of Lotus's present and, it will hope, future successes.
There are weaknesses. He does not have the intense work ethic of a Vettel or Alonso, as those who have worked with him both at his current and former teams will attest. Lotus has made allowances to get the best out of Raikkonen, who made his return to F1 from rallying very much on his own terms. While he probably leaves that final fraction-of-a-percent on the table that his multiple world champion rivals would devour through sheer force of will, he is unquestionably stronger than a second-tier driver such as a Mark Webber.
The prevailing feeling in the paddock is that, with a Vettel or an Alonso in the car over the past 18 months, Lotus would probably have picked up another couple of race wins, but there is no doubt that it is the car's performance that is preventing a title shot, not any shortcoming on Raikkonen's part.
His presence in the team is also a declaration of intent for a team constantly engulfed in speculation about its long-term health. Raikkonen is central to delivering on Lotus's stated ambition.
“I would prefer to be seen as a top team in the long-term rather than a championship-winner just once,” says Boullier. “You can be lucky and win that championship once but we are capable of fighting for top positions every year. That is how we should be perceived and perform.”
If Raikkonen does go, with no chance of luring one of the other top guns, Lotus would have to opt for a driver unproven at the sharp end. The obvious choice is the outstanding Nico Hulkenberg. Largely anonymous for Sauber this season, the German is very fast, experienced enough to cut it at the front and a strong enough driving force to provide the cutting edge Lotus needs.
As for Grosjean, the jury remains out. While his mishaps have frustrated Lotus, he is fast, seriously fast when things are going well for him. Not only is he a driver who, if he fulfils his potential, would represent the “sporting jackpot” for the team (Boullier's words) but his speed keeps Raikkonen sharp. At both Lotus and the Finn's previous teams, there are those who feel he benefits from the motivational shove of a fast driver on the other side of the garage and there is no question Raikkonen respects Grosjean's pace. With or without Raikkonen, Grosjean has a decent shot of staying on at Lotus, provided he maintains his current performance level.
But drivers are only part of the equation. The departure of highly rated technical director James Allison earlier this year was a setback for 2014, although the promotion of Nick Chester to take his place ensured the changeover was seamless. Whoever is in the car, whether Lotus can kick on next year will depend on its own strength, and the power and reliability of the new Renault engine it's likely to be mated to.
Yet whatever the potential of the car, the loss of Raikkonen could only be a negative.
2014 – Raikkonen's options
The famously inscrutable Raikkonen is not an easy man to read. But one thing is abundantly clear; despite the interest from the best team in Formula 1, he wants to stay at Lotus. As he puts it in one of his few telling statements, it is about the overall package and “whatever feels right for me.”
By that, he is referring to two things. Raikkonen loves the ambiance at Lotus and the freedom he is given by a team that makes a virtue of his monosyllabic public persona. He enjoys more freedom than any of the other top-ranked drivers in F1 and everything is done to accommodate him. Kimi is driven by enjoying himself; he has made enough money and tasted enough success to not wish to trade in an environment he revels in for one where he could feel uncomfortable but is more likely to be able to chase another world title.
Asked if he is enjoying his racing, he replies: “I wouldn't be here if not. I would have walked away already. When the day comes that I don't feel it's something I want, I will walk away. If it comes in the middle of the year, I will walk away. I have no passion to be here if I don't feel it's the right thing.”
So far, so good for Lotus. The team wants him, he wants to stay, so sign the contract, surely? Not that simple. There's a huge caveat. Raikkonen has made it abundantly clear to the team that his first choice is to stay, but only if he is convinced it has the resources to kick on. While he does not need a second title to the exclusion of all else, he would not be satisfied feeding on scraps. A competitive car is still clearly part of what makes up the “right thing” by his definition, and he's achieved too much in F1 to simply make up the numbers.
Lotus is probably the fifth-biggest team in F1 in terms of resources and budget. So its current fourth in the championship is, by definition, overachieving. Raikkonen needs to know it can at the very least stay there if he is to re-commit. After all, amid the uncertainty of how the new engines will affect the competitive order next year, Red Bull is as safe a bet as there is.
There are reasons to question Lotus. There have been question marks hanging over its long-term financial position, given its failure to secure a hoped-for major sponsorship deal. Technical director Allison also quit the team, partly motivated by these concerns, and did so even before concluding his move to Ferrari. On the flip-side of the coin, the team has invested in areas such as a new simulator and a gearbox dyno over the past few years, not to mention shunning pay drivers, so it would be wrong to say there is no investment at Lotus.
Also, of the figures you may have read as being team's debt, the vast majority is actually shareholder debt. But with the imminent buy-in by the Infinity Racing consortium, which is in the process of acquiring a 35 percent stake in the squad from owners Genii Capital, the chances of Raikkonen staying have increased.
And so, astonishing to some, Raikkonen is willing to turn down Red Bull Racing. Lotus is “his” team, compatible with his way of working. And after his difficult times at Ferrari and McLaren, environment is paramount. He is not flustered by the prospect of going up against Vettel in the same team, but would find Red Bull less willing to accommodate his peculiarities. After all, if RBR allows Raikkonen fewer corporate days of obligation, you can be sure Vettel will push for the same thing.
Performance-wise, it would be tough for Raikkonen to match Vettel, whose qualities are still (absurdly) undervalued after three world championships in a car that was certainly the strongest in the field but not by as much as he has made it look at times. Even in these days of tire management, which will be made even more complex with the energy management demands of next year's power units and the 100kg fuel limit, qualifying remains the foundation stone for race performance and Raikkonen probably no longer has that last 0.1-0.15sec per lap that Vettel can extract.
While that will not make him number two at Red Bull, a missing tenth-and-a-half could leave him very much as number-one-and-a-half. So there is no guarantee of a second championship even if he does jump ship. While he will be close enough to be a contender, Vettel would likely have the edge, all things being equal. But a Lotus that fulfills its potential could give Kimi exactly that “all things being equal” scenario, as it did in the mid-1990s under the Benetton banner for Michael Schumacher and the mid-2000s as Renault for Fernando Alonso.
Lotus does not need to be a sure thing to keep Raikkonen. It need only be a decent bet to convince him to sign on the dotted line. And over the next month or so, we will find out just how much potential Raikkonen believes Lotus really has.
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Sat Aug 03, 2013 10:39 am
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d" title="nod" /> The whole interview is posted in this thread on page 39. 
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