Kimi Raikkonen was born 17 October 1979 in Finland. Räikkönen's hobbies include snowboarding and ice hockey.
Follow Us
Kimi-Matias Raikkonen popularly known as “The Iceman”, is a Finnish racing driver who competed in Formula One between 2001 and 2021 for Sauber, McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus, and Alfa Romeo. Raikkonen was born 17 October 1979 in Espoo, Finland. Raikkonen’s hobbies include snowboarding and ice hockey. He has also competed in several different kinds of motorsport events. In March 2007, Kimi competed in a snowmobile race in Finland under the pseudonym “James Hunt”, referring to the 1976 world champion whose “playboy” lifestyle has been compared with Raikkonen’s own.
Kimi won the 2007 Formula One World Championship driving for Scuderia Ferrari, their latest World Drivers’ Championship to date. In addition to this title, he also finished second overall in 2003 and 2005, and third in 2008, 2012 and 2018. With 103 podium finishes, he is one of only five drivers to have taken over 100 podiums. The Finn has won 21 Grands Prix, making him the most successful Finnish driver in terms of Formula One race wins, and is the only driver to win in the V10, V8 and the V6 turbo hybrid engine eras.
Kimi had a long line of success in karting from the age of 10. His first race outside Finland was in Monaco when he was 15 years old. During the race, the steering wheel broke, but he continued, informing his mechanic by frantically waving the steering wheel in the air on the home straight. Räikkönen’s next Monaco race was also memorable; he was thrown on the wrong side of the safety fence in a first lap collision but continued driving until running out of road. Undeterred, he lifted his kart back onto the track and continued to race.
His mechanic thought Raikkonen had retired, but he eventually caught up with the other competitors and finished third. In 1998 he was first in the Nordic Championship at Varna in Norway. In 1999, Th Finn placed second in the European Formula Super A championship for the Dutch PDB Racing Team – run by 1980 world champion Peter de Bruijn, utilizing a Gillard chassis. He also competed in the Formula Ford Euro Cup. By the age of twenty, he had won the British Formula Renault winter series of 1999, winning the first four races of the year.
Peter Sauber gave the Finn a test with the Sauber Formula One team in September 2000 at the Mugello Circuit. On just the second day of the test, Räikkönen lapped half a second quicker than regular driver Pedro Diniz. Sauber had kept the news of his test quiet to distract potential competitors, internally referring to Räikkönen as “Eskimo”. After further tests in Jerez and Barcelona, Sauber signed Räikkönen for the 2001 season. However, some critics (including FIA president Max Mosley) voiced concerns over granting an F1 Super License to such an inexperienced driver.
Raikkonen had only 23 car races to his credit. He was nevertheless granted his license from the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) after a performance delivery promise by his team boss, Peter Sauber, and scored a championship point in his debut at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix. Reportedly, Räikkönen was asleep 30 minutes before the race. Kimi had a solid debut year, achieving four points-scoring finishes and eight finishes in the top eight. Completing the year with 9 points, Raikkonen, along with teammate Nick Heidfeld, helped Sauber to what was then its best result of fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.
| Races | 349 |
| Wins | 21 |
| Poles | 18 |
| Podiums | 103 |
| Points | 1873 |
Kimi’s car number was 7. Kimi said everybody had to pick a number and so he picked that. He said there was a chance that he’d take the number 6 because he won the championship with it but Nico Rosberg wanted it because his father won the championship with it, so he just kept what he had.
According to reports, Raikkonen is worth around $250 million, making him one of the richest drivers in Formula 1. As of 2017, he was only behind Fernando Alonso and the two 7-time world champions, Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher. For a brief phase, Raikkonen was one of the highest-paid athletes in the entire world, with his yearly salary peaking at a whopping $50 million. The Finn has been sponsored by two of the finest eye-wear manufacturers, Oakley and Wrangler.
Jenni Väänänen met Formula One racing driver Kimi Räikkönen in late 2000 during the Miss Scandinavia contest that she won. They married on 31 July 2004. The couple lived between Finland and Switzerland. They separated in February 2013, and divorced in 2014.
In 2021, Väänänen married former ice hockey player Ossi Väänänen, and they have two sons.
Kimi started dating Minttu Virtanen a Finnish fitness model soon after. The pair met through mutual friends and, according to reports, sparks instantly flew. The couple have two kids, a boy called Robin and a girl called Rianna, and married in a lavish ceremony in Siena, Italy, in August 2016.
Oakley
Wrangler
Singhai
iLoq
West Coast Chopper
