A glimpse at the career of Finnish Formula 1 driver Kimi Raikkonen
Finnish Formula 1 driver Kimi-Matias Raikkonen, famously known as the Iceman for his cool character was born in Espoo, Finland on October 17, 1979.
In the very early days of his childhood he found his affiliation with car racing and took part in Karting when he was just 10-years-old.
In 1998, he won the Finnish Karting championship and showed some amazing performances in many international kart racing series. In the next year, he participated in Formula Renault and took the victory in the winter series.
In 2000, he became British Formula Renault champion. In the same year, he won two of the three races in European Formula Renault championship and secured two pole positions.
In 2001, he made an incredible debut in F1 with Sauber-Ferrari and came 10th in the drivers’ standings after scoring nine points. Later in 2002, he joined McLaren and secured third podium finish thrice.
In 2003, he took his first ever GP victory at Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia and challenged the seven-time world champion, Michael Schumacher. However, he came second in the drivers’ standings with a difference of just two points.
In the subsequent season, he faced some reliability issues in the car. Nevertheless, he took an impressive victory in the Belgian GP. In 2005, he secured five pole positions, seven race victories and five podium finishes. Nonetheless, he could only achieve
second position at the end of the season because of the problems in the car.
In 2006, although he struggled with McLaren’s car as it was of no match with Renault and Scuderia-Ferrari. However, he still managed to score points in every race throughout the season and finished at fifth place. Additionally, he signed a contract with
Ferrari for the next season.
In 2007, in his first year with the Scarlet team he took victory in the season opener in Australia. In addition, he won five more races and claimed his first world championship title.
In 2008, he had quite a strong start and performed amazingly at the qualifying. He finished at third position with 75 points after following his teammate, Felipe Massa. Moreover, he signed for further two years with Ferrari. Later in 2009, he secured third
and second place finishes at Monaco and Hungary. Conversely, team’s performance was badly affected due to the problems in F60.
In 2010, he left F1 and took part in World Rally Championship in which his best performance was at Turkey where he came fifth. In the next year, he said good bye to Rally.
In 2012, he made his return into F1 with Lotus F1 team. In the first year of his comeback, the Finnish driver has shown quite convincing performances in the season so far.
He secured 7th position in the first race held at Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia after starting from 17th place in the grid. Afterwards, in the second race at Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia he came 5th and qualified for tenth grid position.
In the third race at Shanghai International Circuit in China, even though he started from 4th position in the grid but he could not be able to score even a single point and finished at 14th place. Nonetheless, in the fourth race at Bahrain International
Circuit in Sakhir he secured second podium finish and followed the defending champion, Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Racing.
He is currently at seventh position in the drivers’ championship with 34 points and aims to deliver his best in the races ahead.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely of the writer’s and do not reflect bettor.com’s official editorial policy.
Tags: