Kimi Matias Raikkonen spent his childhood in a house built by his great-grandfather in Espoo, a suburb of the Finnish capital, Helsinki. To provide for Kimi, born October 17, 1979, and his older brother Rami, their parents Matti and Paula. worked tirelessly. There was not enough money all the time. In order for his sons to be professionally engaged in karting, Matti had to work at night as a taxi driver and a bouncer in a nightclub.
Carier start
After a rapid streak of successes in Finnish, Scandinavian and European karting, Kimi found himself behind the wheel of a racing car and quickly won two British Formula Renault championships. In the fall of 2000, despite the fact that he had practically no experience, he was admitted to the tests of the Sauber Formula One team. Impressed by his crazy pace and confident piloting, Peter Sauber showed discernment and signed the 21-year-old Finn for the next season. His meteoric rise to the pinnacle of motorsport has sparked a fierce debate about his right, let alone his willingness, to participate in royal motor racing. Raikkonen quickly rebuffed his critics, finishing sixth in his debut Formula 1 race and making it through the championship with confidence. He was able to draw attention to his McLaren owner Ron Dennis, who saw him as the likely successor to retiring two-time champion Mik Hakkinen. And as it turned out, he, like Peter Sauber, was not mistaken in his choice.
Experts have endlessly praised his uncompromising, straightforward and mostly unmistakable style. “I never think about what I am doing. I just do it. And that's my job.”Kimi told reporters in a rare burst of introspection.
Career
His five seasons at McLaren coincided with a period of instability in the legendary stable. However, he finished second in the championship twice (2003 and 2005), won nine races and climbed the podium thirty-six times.
In 2007, he moved to Ferrari after being hired (reportedly $ 41 million a year) to replace the seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher.
After winning his debut Ferrari in Australia, Raikkonen kept control of the entire '07 season, waiting for the Brazilian Grand Prix to re-establish the championship lead and wrest the Championship title from under the noses of McLaren's previous employers. Alas, in 2008 he will not be able to repeat the same trick and for most of the season, he was the faithful squire of his partner Fellipe Massa.
At the end of the 2009 season, Raikkonen agreed to leave Ferrari, receiving compensation, despite the fact that his contract was still pending to make way for Fernando Alonso.
Raikkonen then spent two years competing in the World Rally Championship and making one-off appearances in NASCAR trucks before announcing his return to F1 in late 2011 with Team Lotus.
From the moment he was back in the Formula 1 car, Raikkonen proved that his two-year vacation did not affect his ambition and speed.
In the hands of Raikkonen, the Lotus E20 proved to be a consistently fast car, Finn climbed the podium seven times and finished in all races. The well-deserved victory in Abu Dhabi summed up an almost perfect season in which he finished third in the championship.
He continued in that style in 2013 with Lotus, winning the first race in Australia brilliantly and becoming a title contender after three consecutive runners-ups in China, Bahrain and Spain. But alas, Lotus could not keep up with such a crazy pace, and this, along with the team's financial problems, led to Raikkonen signing a contract to return to Ferrari in 2014.
Unfortunately for the Finn, his first season after returning to Scuderia was disastrous. For the first time since his debut season in 2001, Raikkonen has never made it to the podium and finished the season 106 points behind outgoing team-mate Fernando Alonso.
2015 was not much better, he was unable to win a single race and only drank champagne on the podium three times, while his new team-mate, Sebastian Vettel, won three races and climbed the podium thirteen times.
The subsequent 2016-18 years, alas, only strengthened the status quo of the pilots in Maranelo, Vettel is the undisputed "number one", and Kimi is his permanent squire, who will always help his partner if command tactics require it.
Character and personal life
His catwalk performances and subsequent television interviews generated increased media interest in him. True, Kimi himself was not particularly happy with this attention. In front of the cameras, he typically wriggled and fidgeted, moved his ears, rubbed his nose and tried to hide under his baseball cap. He rarely smiled and spoke sparsely.
Nevertheless, in his personal life, the famous Kimi was prone to extravagant acts. Spanish media gleefully reported that the alcohol-loving flying Finn was found fast asleep in the street next to a bar, hugging an inflatable rubber dolphin. In Monaco, he was filmed on a yacht, staggering on the upper deck, and then fell headfirst on the lower deck.
“What I do in my personal life doesn't make me drive slower,” Raikkonen retorted.
From 2004 to 2013, Raikkonen was married to Jenny Dahlman. They purchased a villa on the island of Kaskisaari in the suburbs of Helsinki, which he acquired for 9.5 million euros. Kimi also owns a villa on the island of Phuket and a penthouse in the "Stone Palace" (Kivipalatsi) in the center of Helsinki.
On August 7, 2016, Kimi married Mintta Virtanen
Raikkonen has two children: son Robin and daughter Rihanna Angelia Milana
