Hotakainen Kari - The unknown Kimi Räikkönen

Thank you, Sami Visa

Dont give me facts, tell me what they mean.

FORMER US SECRETARY OF STATE

HENRY KISSINGER

Even bad memories can be good ones.

F1 DRIVER KIMI RIKKNEN

There are many sports in the world which only a few take up as a hobby, but which have been accepted as Olympic sports. We get detailed descriptions and expert commentaries on someone lying in a sled, sliding along a frozen chute at an insane speed. I dont know anybody whose hobbies include sledding perhaps because few nations can afford to build sledding tracks on mountainsides. There are seventeen such tracks in the world. After the Olympics, these tracks become sad museums.

Ski jumping is an important sport for the Finns, but how many actually do it? Perhaps a minuscule fraction of the people who watch it on television. In theory, its possible to take it up as a hobby. A failure to do so doesnt deter anyone from expressing confident opinions and analyses of what went wrong at the takeoff stage.

No one has Formula 1 as their hobby. No one would say theyre going to a Formula practice in the evening. All the same, at every bar and petrol station you find experts who will tell you that the Sepang circuit simply doesnt suit such and such a driver.

Were not ski jumpers ourselves, we dont fly, carried by our skis, for a single second, but that doesnt stop us from being experts. Being on the outside makes us infallible.

This book has been written from an outsiders perspective. There arent many other perspectives around. This is not a biography; it couldnt be because the protagonist is only halfway through his life. This is the story of a racing driver who could have become a car mechanic. But he didnt; he became world-famous instead. It happened quickly and with luck on his side, thanks to his mother, father and the man himself. All he wanted to do was to drive as fast as possible. Most such people remain unknown something he would have liked but its too late now.

Its 1981 in Karhusuo, Espoo. Its night time; the boy is restless, he cant get to sleep. His mother is trying to soothe him, picks him up again; the boy has always liked being held. Hes very different from her other son, who is two years older; hes more sensitive, with his feelers out. At last the boy falls asleep in the early hours of the morning.

The next day, on her way to work, the exhausted mother thinks of what she and her husband have already been concerned about for a long time: the boy doesnt speak, not a word, even though hes nearly three.

The parents take the boy to be examined. Theres nothing wrong with him; he performs all the tasks quickly, actually more quickly than is average for his age. He just doesnt speak. Maybe itll come later.

The speech comes in the end and, after saying goodbye to cuddles, the boy takes off at breakneck speed. Action beats words 100. His legs work faster than his tongue; the flaxen-haired boy has broken loose.

Thirty-six years on, his forename has lost its second half. Hes just Kimi today; Kimi-Matias has vanished in a cloud of dust, and no one remembers his official first name any longer. Its unlikely that many people even know it, only perhaps one or two of the dozens of fans in the foyer of the Sama-Sama Hotel in Kuala Lumpur on Friday at 9.10am. At least they know hell come out of the lift soon and wont say a word.

The fans come from Malaysia, Japan and China. They speak Formula English among themselves, with a scant vocabulary but with a lot of noise. Screaming and cooing know no language barriers. They flit from one lift door to another, and their simultaneous, ringing utterances sound as if exotic birds had flown to the scene to peck at the same morsel: a taciturn driver.

The fans glance expectantly at a familiar figure, Kimis affairs manager, Sami Visa, who comes down to the foyer in lift number two. Hes carrying a Ferrari rucksack with the numbers 007 printed on it. The fans are not deceived by the James Bond reference; seven is Kimis race number. They know what Visas appearance in the foyer means: Kimi will be down soon, and well be the first ones to see him.

The doors of lift number four open. The man in red has arrived.

Kimi wears a T-shirt with a collar covered in sponsors logos, a pair of shorts, a cap and black glasses. Mark Arnall, his physiotherapist, also in red, comes out of the lift at the same time. He has accompanied Kimi for the past sixteen years, ensuring the driver has all he needs. Peace and privacy are the only things that Arnall cant supply.

Kimi sees the fans and stops. He knows what he has to do before diving into the Maserati waiting outside. A couple of minutes, forty metres, then the encounter will be over.

Sami Visa tries to keep the cooing fans at arms length. They hand over one cap and one shirt at a time for Kimi to sign they mustnt be allowed to touch him. Kimi writes KR, or something like it, scrawling his initials quickly. Then the next one. Is there one more? Very well, one more. His face remains expressionless, except for a fleeting change, a twitch round the lips: a smile, a silent present to the faithful supporters who have travelled a long way to be there.

The fans shriek for joy. Theyve got something, and something is better than nothing. The main doors slide open, and Kimi walks quickly to the Maserati and sits down in the drivers seat which has been adjusted to the lowest possible position, the back reclining as far as it can. This is the way he sits in all cars. Its a work-related habit: the driver of a Formula car sits in an almost horizontal position.

Mark Arnall occupies the passenger seat and passes Kimi a bottle of carefully selected liquid. The weather is humid and warm, 34C. The air conditioning ensures we are immune to the outside temperature. The car leaps forward. As soon as were over the hotel ramp and on the motorway, Kimi accelerates to over 100 km/h. His left hand shakes the half-litre bottle of some grey, thick substance, a smoothie. His right hand holds the wheel, the middle finger changes gear; the car jerks. I catch a glimpse of the speed limit: 70 km/h. When the limit becomes 100 km/h, Kimi accelerates to 140. I glance at Sami Visa. His expression says: Dont say anything; this is how it always goes.

The distance from the hotel to the Sepang circuit is just under ten kilometres. Kimis team-mate Sebastian Vettel left with his trainer, Antti Kontsas, before us but we arrive at the circuit at the same time.

He goes where no one has any business or the keys to enter: his own world. What might look like introversion from the outside is simply concentration.

Apart from good morning, Kimi hasnt said a word on the way there, even though his closest colleagues, Mark and Sami, are in the car. I recall what Sami said to me earlier: Kimi becomes a racing driver first thing in the morning. He goes where no one has any business or the keys to enter: his own world. What might look like introversion from the outside is simply concentration.

We get out of the car. Visa reminds us that, before we go to the pit area, theres a brief meeting with fans. Around a couple of hundred of them have been enclosed behind a wire fence, and they hand over caps, cards, their arms and T-shirts. Kimi jots his vague KR scrawl on the caps, poses for a mobile phone swaying at the end of a selfie stick, and does all he can to ensure he wont need to do anything more.