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I don’t think there’s been a more highly rated driver in recent memory that I feel more indifferent about than Kimi Räikkönen.
Yes, I am fully aware of the risks to my person for publicly showing anything but gratitude for the very presence of this monosyllabic Finn, but some risks are worth taking.
I am totally, utterly, 100 per cent 50/50 on Kimi Räikkönen.
He can be great entertainment value – paradoxically, mind you, by doing and saying so very little – but is his presence at the top of the Formula One tree really warranted? Put down your pitchforks and let’s consider.
First, credit must be awarded where it’s due, and Räikkönen is obviously owed recognition for winning the 2007 world championship. It may have needed McLaren teammates Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton to publicly feud for much of the season and then for Felipe Massa to let his Ferrari teammate by at the Brazilian Grand Prix to make it happen, but hey, Formula One is a numbers game. Titles have been won with less.
That title came in his seventh year. Before that historic season, just as has been the case since, he has thrived on a combination of untimely toilet breaks, spontaneous episodes of sleep, and magnum ice creams – meaningless sin the hands of mere mortals, but transformed into a potent combination for success in the possession of the Ice Man.
That Kimi does have such pedigree makes his two year (enforced) sabbatical from Formula One even more bizarre. He spent his 24 months away from open wheel racing largely upside-down and being dehydrated in NASCAR, yet still provoked sufficient excitement by the end of it to land a competitive seat with Lotus.
The passage of time did not and has not faded the Räikkönen myth, and the physical manifestation of the no-dancing, no-singing Finn has similarly persisted.
But pop culture and snapback hat value aside, why has Kimi’s magic kept Formula One spellbound for so long?
Though his results when racing in the low-pressure Lotus environment were promising, his performance in the Ferrari big leagues since his return have been lukewarm at best. Räikkönen was pummelled by Fernando Alonso last season, and he’s on his way to being similarly picked apart by Sebastian Vettel this year.
He was totally at sea last year. While the terminally dispirited Fernando Alonso was able to put the underwhelming 2014 Ferrari on the podium twice, Räikkönen five times failed to finish in the points on the way to scoring just over a third of the Spaniard’s points.
The Finn was, to some degree, able to hide behind the flaws of the car. While Alonso has earnt the unfortunate reputation of extracting something beyond the maximum of poorly-built cars, Räikkönen has always been known as the opposite. If the car isn’t finely balanced and attuned to his driving style, the Finn flounders. Though the size of the points disparity raised eyebrows, the true believers held out hope.
But 2015 is proving too loud for even the staunchest of Räikkönen fans to ignore. The car is as close as any has ever been to a match with the Mercedes leaders, and Räikkönen himself praised the steps taken over the summer to deliver an utterly drivable car.
What’s more, Ferrari has purported that the styles of Räikkönen and Vettel have significant overlap, meaning the development of the car through the year should be largely suiting both drivers.
The projection bears little resemblance to the reality.
Five podiums to one. One win to nil. The only blight on Vettel’s copybook was a strangely untidy Bahrain Grand Prix, while at all other races Räikkönen has had no answer to Vettel’s superior pace in the same machinery.
Yes, Ferrari has tendency to prefer teams comprising a first, dominant driver and a second, subservient one – but with Mercedes setting the bar without having to compromise its driver line-up, Ferrari is forcing itself to fight with one hand behind its back.
But then is it little wonder it finds itself in this position? In truth Räikkönen was signed in a panic, when the Scuderia’s former management team of Luca Montezemolo and Stefano Domenicali though Alonso was about to pull the plug before it would have the opportunity to lure Sebastian Vettel away from Ferrari. It was only ever a marriage of convenience – and the Finn is looking less convenient by the race.
Maurizio Arrivabene’s short statement after the Austrian Grand Prix left no doubt as to where he considers the future of the team lies.
“Which positives can we take from this weekend? Not many, but certainly once more we are aware that Sebastian was the big asset we could get this year,” was the opening line. It failed to mention Räikkönen throughout.
Kimi Räikkönen has made an undoubted contribution to Formula One, and he deserves as much respect as any winner of the world championship – but in 2015, it might be time for the Finn to fly on.