Kimi Räikkönen: the 2007 champion from Sauber to rallying and Lotus

Kimi Räikkönen is a Finnish racing driver who won the 2007 Formula One World Championship with Ferrari, by one point from Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, and started 349 Grands Prix between 2001 and 2021 for Sauber, McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus and Alfa Romeo. He won 21 of them and stood on the podium 103 times, figures given in Sky Sports’ report of his retirement in September 2021.

The Finn reached Formula 1 after only 23 car races, left it at the end of 2009 to drive in the World Rally Championship and NASCAR, and came back in 2012 with Lotus, for whom he won twice. Known as “the Iceman”, he was born in Espoo, Finland, on 17 October 1979. Since 2022 he has been team principal of Kawasaki’s motocross team, and in September 2026 his son Robin signed for Red Bull’s junior programme.

Early life and karting in Finland

Räikkönen grew up in Espoo, near Helsinki in Finland, and began racing karts at the age of ten, according to Ferrari’s driver biography. In 1998 he won the Nordic Karting Championship. He went on to the Formula Ford Euro Cup and finished second in the European Formula Super A karting championship before he moved to single-seaters.

English-language sources often spell his name Kimi Raikkonen, without the umlauts. Off the track, he told the writer Kari Hotakainen that his family “were always together … because we were all into motorsports”, in the 2018 biography The Unknown Kimi Räikkönen, quoted by Formula1.com in October 2018.

Formula Renault and a Sauber seat after 23 car races

Räikkönen raced cars for little more than a year before Sauber put him in Formula One. Motor Sport’s driver database records that he moved from karts to cars in 1999 and won all four rounds of the British Formula Renault winter series for Manor Motorsport, then won seven of the 12 races and the British Formula Renault title with John Booth’s Manor team in 2000. Sauber gave him a test at Mugello that September, and more running at Jerez and Barcelona in December; Top Gear wrote in 2021 that he was on the pace of Sauber’s regular drivers by his second day.

The super licence row of 2001

His 23 car races were three in Formula Ford and 20 in Formula Renault, Top Gear counted, and the FIA president, Max Mosley, objected to giving such a novice a super licence. Peter Sauber said in January 2001 that the licence allowed Räikkönen to start the first four Grands Prix, after which the FIA would review it: “I understand Mosley’s arguments. However, we believe Kimi is up to it,” he told the Swiss magazine Motorsport Aktuell, as Grandprix.com reported on 31 January 2001. By April the FIA said his probation continued automatically “unless there are any problems” (Grandprix.com, 23 April 2001).

A point on his debut in Melbourne

Top Gear recorded that he was asleep in the Sauber motorhome 30 minutes before his first race, the 2001 Australian Grand Prix. He finished sixth and scored a point (Formula 1’s record of his 2001 races). Fourth places in Austria and Canada followed, and he finished tenth in the championship with nine points; Nick Heidfeld, his teammate, was eighth with 12 (Formula 1’s official 2001 standings).

McLaren, 2002 to 2006

McLaren signed Räikkönen to replace Mika Häkkinen for 2002, and in five seasons there, with David Coulthard and then Juan Pablo Montoya as his teammates, he won nine Grands Prix and finished second in the championship twice, in 2003 and 2005.

First win in Malaysia and losing the 2003 title by two points

He was third on his McLaren debut in Melbourne in 2002, and won his first Grand Prix in Malaysia on 23 March 2003. “I think that now they have changed the qualifying system you never know what other teams are doing and you have a chance,” he said afterwards, in Grandprix.com’s race report. He took his first poles at the Nürburgring and Indianapolis, retired from the lead in Germany, and went to the last race at Suzuka with a chance of the title. Michael Schumacher won it with 93 points to Räikkönen’s 91 (Formula 1’s 2003 standings).

Seven wins in 2005

The 2004 McLaren MP4-19 was slow and unreliable until the B-spec car arrived at the French Grand Prix; Räikkönen took pole at Silverstone and won at Spa from tenth on the grid (Motor Sport). In 2005 he won seven races, including Monaco from pole, but lost the European Grand Prix to a tyre failure on the last lap, and Motor Sport records that poor reliability blunted his title challenge. He finished second to Fernando Alonso, 112 points to 133 (Formula 1’s 2005 standings). At Suzuka he won from 17th on the grid, passing Giancarlo Fisichella’s Renault around the outside on the last lap, in what Grandprix.com’s report called “a Silverstone-type finish”.

A winless 2006 and the move to Ferrari

Räikkönen did not win in 2006, his last McLaren season; he was second in Australia and Italy and finished fifth with 65 points (Formula 1’s 2006 standings). Scuderia Ferrari signed him to replace Michael Schumacher, who was retiring, and Motor Sport records that the contract made him Formula One’s highest-paid driver.

How Räikkönen won the 2007 world championship

Räikkönen won the 2007 title by one point at the last race, in Brazil, after starting the day third in the standings, seven points behind Lewis Hamilton and three behind Fernando Alonso, both of McLaren. He finished the season on 110 points to their 109, with six wins, the most of any driver that year (Formula 1’s 2007 standings).

Six wins in his first Ferrari season

He won from pole on his Ferrari debut in Australia, then won in France and Britain, at Spa and at Shanghai in China (Motor Sport). His teammate was Felipe Massa, and the Brazilian finished fourth with 94 points. McLaren spent much of the year under investigation in the “Spygate” affair.

The last race at Interlagos

Massa started from pole at Interlagos on 21 October 2007 with Hamilton alongside. Hamilton ran wide at turn four on the first lap and fell to eighth; on lap eight his McLaren’s gearbox jammed in neutral and he dropped to 18th before it restarted, Al Jazeera reported. Räikkönen passed Massa at the second round of pit stops and won, with Massa second and Alonso third; Hamilton recovered to seventh (Grandprix.com race notes). It was the first three-way title battle settled at the final round since 1986, and Räikkönen became Finland’s third world champion, after Keke Rosberg and Mika Häkkinen. “Even in the bad times everyone, everyone was sticking together, and we didn’t give up,” he said.

Ferrari in 2008 and 2009, and why he left

Räikkönen won two races in 2008 and one in 2009, and left Ferrari at the end of 2009 with a year of his contract still to run, so that Fernando Alonso could take his seat. His 2008 campaign began with wins in Malaysia and Spain, and he finished third with 75 points, behind Massa’s 97, (Formula 1’s 2008 standings), and Ferrari won the constructors’ title (Ferrari). In 2009 he won the Belgian Grand Prix, his fourth win at Spa, and finished sixth with 48 points.

Why Ferrari let Räikkönen go

From the 2008 Australian Grand Prix to the 2009 German Grand Prix, Massa outqualified Räikkönen 16 to 12 and outscored him 119 points to 85, Sky Sports calculated in 2013. The same piece connects Alonso’s arrival with Ferrari’s sponsorship deal with the Spanish bank Santander, which had followed Alonso to McLaren in 2007. Footage of Räikkönen eating an ice cream during the red flag at the rain-hit 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix was, in Sky’s phrase, “the image that came to define the end of his ‘first’ F1 career”.

Ferrari announced Alonso’s three-year contract on 30 September 2009. “With common consent, we have agreed to terminate the contract binding me to Ferrari to the end of 2010,” Räikkönen said in the team’s statement, reported by OneShift, which cited the Spanish paper El País putting his settlement at 45 million euros. Top Gear later put it at “a reputed £20m not to drive that year”. Before the next race, in Japan, Räikkönen said: “There are many reasons. In F1 there is always a lot of money and there can always be different options.”

Kimi Räikkönen in rallying, 2009 to 2011

Räikkönen drove in the World Rally Championship for two full seasons, 2010 with the Citroën Junior Team and 2011 with his own ICE 1 Racing, and finished tenth in the drivers’ championship both years (Motor Sport). His co-driver was Kaj Lindström (Crash.net).

Rally Finland 2009 and the Citroën Junior Team

He made his WRC debut at Rally Finland in July 2009, during his last Ferrari season, in a Fiat Abarth Grande Punto S2000, and crashed out on the second day, on stage 19, according to Crash.net’s WRC driver profile. In 2010 he drove a Red Bull-liveried Citroën C4 WRC: he scored his first points with eighth in Jordan and was fifth in Turkey, where the winner was Sébastien Loeb, “their best-ever result with the C4 WRC”, Citroën’s report, published by Racecar, said. He crashed out in Mexico, Japan and France, missed Spain after a shakedown crash, and scored 25 points. He won his first WRC stage at Rallye Deutschland, where he finished seventh (Juwra’s 2010 season review). He also won the Rallye National Vosgien, a French national asphalt rally, that year (Crash.net).

ICE 1 Racing and the Citroën DS3 WRC

For 2011 Räikkönen ran his own team, ICE 1 Racing, with a Citroën DS3 WRC and a programme of ten rallies (Crash.net). He again finished tenth in the championship (Motor Sport), and in November signed for Lotus Renault GP.

Kimi Räikkönen in NASCAR

Räikkönen has raced in NASCAR four times: twice at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May 2011, and in Cup Series races at Watkins Glen in 2022 and the Circuit of the Americas in 2023. In 2011 he finished 15th in a Kyle Busch Motorsports truck in the Truck Series and 27th in a Nationwide (now Xfinity) Series race, both at Charlotte, according to NBC Sports.

Trackhouse and PROJECT91

Trackhouse Racing announced in May 2022 that Räikkönen, the 2007 world champion, would be the first driver of PROJECT91, a part-time No. 91 Chevrolet for international drivers. “I wasn’t looking to race again, but Justin came to my home in Switzerland and convinced me how serious he was about putting together a top-notch program,” he said, referring to the team owner Justin Marks. At Watkins Glen on 21 August 2022 he qualified 27th of 39 and ran in the top ten before a multi-car crash after Austin Dillon spun put him into the tyre barrier; he had completed 44 of the 90 laps and was classified 37th (NBC Sports race report). He drove the No. 91 again at the Circuit of the Americas in 2023 (RacingNews365).

The Lotus comeback, 2012 and 2013

Räikkönen made his return to Formula 1 with Lotus for 2012 and 2013, won a race in each season, and finished third and fifth in the championship. He signed a two-year contract with Lotus Renault GP, which was renamed Lotus for 2012, on 29 November 2011, after being linked with Williams (Speedcafe, 29 November 2011).

Why Lotus Renault GP signed Räikkönen

The team’s lead driver, Robert Kubica, had missed the 2011 season after a crash at the Ronde di Andora rally that February partly severed his forearm, and his management had said he would not be ready for the start of 2012, a SkiddMark report on the signing recorded. It quoted the team principal, Eric Boullier, as saying he had no intention of “giving Robert Kubica a car to prove his fitness in only to see the Pole jump ship to another team in 2013”, and noted that Vitaly Petrov, Bruno Senna and the test driver Romain Grosjean were all waiting on the two 2012 seats. Räikkönen said in the team’s statement: “I’m grateful to Lotus Renault GP for offering me this opportunity. My time in the World Rally Championship has been a useful stage in my career as a driver, but I can’t deny the fact that my hunger for F1 has recently become overwhelming.” Gérard Lopez, chairman of the owners Genii Capital, called the signing “the first step of several announcements”; the second seat went to Grosjean (Formula 1’s 2012 standings).

“Leave me alone, I know what I’m doing”: Abu Dhabi 2012

Räikkönen scored points in 19 of the 20 races in 2012 and finished third with 207 points, behind Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso (Formula 1’s 2012 standings). He won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on 4 November 2012 after Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren, which was leading, pulled off. When his race engineer, Simon Rennie, told him of his lead, Räikkönen replied: “Leave me alone, I know what I’m doing,” as Motor Sport’s database and Mark Hughes’s Autosport race review record.

Australia 2013, unpaid wages and back surgery

He won the first race of 2013, in Melbourne, and five second places before the summer break made him Sebastian Vettel’s closest challenger in the championship battle (Motor Sport). He later named the Melbourne win as his favourite of the Lotus years, “because not many people before the season expected us to win” (Autosport, December 2021). The team was short of money: in Abu Dhabi in November he was in a pay dispute with Lotus, and he then chose to have surgery on his back in Salzburg, missing the last two races, in the United States and Brazil, Autosport reported. He still finished fifth with 183 points (Formula 1’s 2013 standings), and had already signed to return to Ferrari for 2014.

Back at Ferrari, 2014 to 2018

Räikkönen spent five more seasons at Ferrari, alongside Fernando Alonso in 2014 and Sebastian Vettel from 2015 to 2018, and won one race, the 2018 United States Grand Prix. His best championship finish in that spell was third in 2018, with 251 points (Formula 1’s 2018 standings).

Teammate to Alonso and Vettel

The 2014 Ferrari F14 T was slow, Alonso scored 161 points to Räikkönen’s 55, and Räikkönen was 12th, his worst result in a full season until then (Formula 1’s 2014 standings). With Vettel in the other car he was fourth in 2015, when contact with Valtteri Bottas’s Williams in Russia and Mexico cost him points; sixth in 2016, when he was second in Bahrain and Spain; and fourth in 2017. At Monaco in 2017 he took his first pole position since 2008 and finished second in a Ferrari one-two, and he was second again in Hungary; the Ferrari president, Sergio Marchionne, criticised him in public after the races in China and Austria that year (Motor Sport).

The 2018 United States Grand Prix win

At the Circuit of the Americas on 21 October 2018, Räikkönen passed Hamilton’s Mercedes from second on the grid into the first corner, stayed out when Hamilton made an early stop, a strategy that left him leading again after Hamilton’s second stop, and won by 1.2 seconds from Max Verstappen, with Hamilton third. It was his 21st and last Grand Prix win, his first of the V6 hybrid era (Crash.net), and Ferrari’s first in the United States since Michael Schumacher in 2006 (Grandprix.com race notes). The gap since his previous victory, Australia in 2013, was 113 races, Crash.net counted. In September he had taken his 18th and last pole position, at Monza for the Italian Grand Prix (Motor Sport). “It came quite easily in many ways,” Räikkönen said. Ferrari had already signed Charles Leclerc for 2019, and Räikkönen had agreed a two-year deal with Sauber (Autosport, September 2021; Crash.net).

Alfa Romeo and retirement, 2019 to 2021

Räikkönen ended his Formula One career with three seasons at Sauber, which raced as Alfa Romeo Racing, the team he had started with in 2001. His teammate in all three seasons was the Italian Antonio Giovinazzi. Räikkönen’s best result was fourth in Brazil in 2019, and he was 12th in the 2019 championship and 16th in 2020 and 2021 (Formula 1’s 2019 standings).

Breaking the record for Grand Prix starts

At the Eifel Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in October 2020 he made his 323rd start, one more than Rubens Barrichello’s record, GPFans reported; his race was remembered for a first-corner collision that sent George Russell’s Williams flying. When Sky Sports reported his retirement plans in 2021 he had competed in more races than any other driver in the sport’s history. He finished with 349 starts, which Formula1.com called “a record” when he announced his next job in January 2022. Fernando Alonso passed that total at the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix, and by October 2024 Autosport counted Alonso on 396 starts and Lewis Hamilton on 351, with Räikkönen third on 349. Alonso had 440 when he signed for a 2027 season with Aston Martin, The Race reported in September 2026.

When did Kimi Räikkönen retire?

Räikkönen retired from Formula One after the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on 12 December 2021. He had announced it on Instagram on 1 September 2021, before the Dutch Grand Prix: “This is it. This will be my last season in Formula 1,” adding that he had decided “during last winter” (Autosport, Sky Sports). Days later he tested positive for Covid-19 at Zandvoort and Robert Kubica, the team’s reserve driver, raced as his replacement, the team said in a statement reported by Speedcafe; he missed the Dutch and the Italian Grands Prix (Formula 1’s record of his 2021 races). In his last race a brake problem pitched his Alfa Romeo C41 into the barrier at turn six before half distance (Speedcafe). “That’s racing, sometimes things fail, but today’s result doesn’t influence how I feel about my career,” he said. He was 42, the oldest driver on the grid, and had scored ten points that season (The National).

Kimi Räikkönen’s F1 career statistics

In 19 seasons Räikkönen started 349 Grands Prix, won 21, scored 103 podium finishes, took 18 pole positions and set 46 fastest laps, a tally that only Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton have beaten (Autosport, December 2021; Formula 1’s season records). His 21 victories came for three teams: nine for McLaren, ten for Ferrari and two for Lotus. He contested 19 Formula 1 championships, won one, in 2007, and was second in 2003 and 2005; his four wins in Belgium are the most he took at any circuit. In the Autosport poll of 217 Formula One drivers published in December 2009, he was voted the 22nd greatest of all time (see the greatest F1 driver of all time for every poll).

Season-by-season results

Points and championship places from Formula 1’s official standings for each season; wins and podiums counted from Formula 1’s race-by-race record of each of his seasons. The 2010 and 2011 seasons are missing because he was rallying.

Every Grand Prix win

From Formula 1’s race-by-race record of each season.

Why is Kimi Räikkönen called the Iceman?

Ron Dennis, McLaren’s team principal, named Räikkönen “the Iceman” when he joined the team in 2002. Hotakainen’s biography explains it: “he comes from a cold climate, drives fast and talks little; he doesn’t explain anything, does his job to the best of his ability, and then moves on to the next race.” His short answers became famous: asked by Martin Brundle on the grid at the 2006 Brazilian Grand Prix whether he would get over missing Pelé’s presentation to Michael Schumacher, he said “Yeah. I was having a sh*t,” as Top Gear recalled in 2021. Fernando Alonso told the F1 Beyond the Grid podcast, as Top Gear reported in December 2021, that “there is a different person I think inside … not the Iceman”.

What is Kimi Räikkönen doing now?

Räikkönen is team principal of the Kawasaki Racing Team in the MXGP motocross world championship, a job he took in January 2022. He had run his own motocross team, Ice One Racing, before that, and runs Kawasaki’s factory team with the Finnish former rider Antti Pyrhönen. “This team is not what you might call a hobby; it’s very serious, very focused,” he said, adding that he would work on it “not on the daily issues but more from a strategic point of view”, when the appointment was announced (Formula1.com, 27 January 2022). In 2025 Romain Febvre won the MXGP world title for the team, its first and Räikkönen’s first title success as a team principal: “Mission Accomplished!” Räikkönen said (RacingNews365).

Family and Robin Räikkönen

Räikkönen is married to Minttu Räikkönen, and the 2018 biography describes him as a family man who would rather be at home with their children, Robin and Rianna (Formula1.com, 2018). Red Bull announced on 9 September 2026 that Robin, then 11 and known by the nickname “Ace”, would join its junior driver programme from 2027. “His speed, racecraft and natural talent have established him as one of the most promising young drivers in his age group,” said Laurent Mekies, Red Bull’s team principal. “It is thus with great humility that Robin joins this illustrious programme,” Räikkönen said, in Formula1.com’s report.

Questions

How many world championships did Kimi Räikkönen win?

One, in 2007 with Ferrari, by a single point: 110 to 109 for both Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. He was runner-up for McLaren in 2003 and 2005.

How many races did Kimi Räikkönen win?

21 Grands Prix from 349 starts: nine for McLaren, ten for Ferrari and two for Lotus. The first was Malaysia in 2003 and the last the United States Grand Prix in 2018.

How old is Kimi Räikkönen?

He was born on 17 October 1979 in Espoo, Finland, so he is 47. He was 21 at his first Grand Prix and 42 at his last.

Did Kimi Räikkönen drive for Red Bull?

Not in Formula One. His Citroën Junior Team C4 WRC ran in Red Bull colours in 2010, and in 2026 his son Robin signed for Red Bull’s junior programme from 2027.

Why did Kimi Räikkönen leave Lotus?

He had signed for Ferrari for 2014 and was in a pay dispute with Lotus when he chose to have back surgery in November 2013, missing the last two races of the season.

Is Kimi Räikkönen still racing?

No. He retired from Formula One at the end of 2021 and last raced in the NASCAR Cup Series at the Circuit of the Americas in 2023. He is now team principal of Kawasaki’s MXGP motocross team.

Sources

• Formula 1, official drivers’ standings, 2001–2009 and 2012–2021: points, places and teammates in every season (each season’s page at formula1.com/en/results/<year>/drivers).
• Formula 1, “Kimi Räikkönen” race-by-race results for each season (formula1.com/en/results/<year>/drivers/KIMRAI01/kimi-raikkonen): wins, podiums and missed races.
• Motor Sport, Motorsport Database, “Kimi Raikkonen”: junior career, McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus and rally summaries.
• Ferrari, “Kimi Räikkönen”, driver biography: karting and Formula Renault record.
• Formula1.com, “Six things we learned about Kimi Raikkonen in his new book”, 18 October 2018: the Iceman nickname and Hotakainen’s biography.
• Top Gear, “10 reasons why Top Gear loves Kimi Raikkonen”, December 2021: 23 car races, his debut, quotes, the 2010 settlement.
• Grandprix.com, “Raikkonen could be kicked out of F1”, 31 January 2001 and “Raikkonen races on”, 23 April 2001: the super licence.
• Autosport, “Kimi Raikkonen’s top 10 F1 races ranked”, December 2021: wins, poles and fastest laps.
• Grandprix.com, Malaysian GP 2003 report, Japanese GP 2005 report, Brazilian GP 2007 race notes and United States GP 2018 race notes.
• Al Jazeera, “Raikkonen on top of the world”, 22 October 2007: the 2007 decider.
• OneShift, “Alonso to join Ferrari next year”, October 2009: Ferrari’s statement and El País’s figure.
• Sky Sports, “Back to the future: What happened when Kimi Raikkonen left Ferrari in 2009?”, September 2013: Massa’s qualifying and points record, Santander.
• Crash.net, “Kimi Raikkonen”, WRC driver profile: 2009 and 2010 rally results.
• Citroën Racing via Racecar, “Great drive from Kimi brings him home fifth in Turkey”, April 2010.
• Juwra, “Season 2010”: first points and first stage win.
• NBC Sports, “Kimi Raikkonen to make Cup debut with Trackhouse at Watkins Glen”, May 2022 and “Kimi Raikkonen’s NASCAR debut ends in the tire barrier”, 21 August 2022.
• Speedcafe, “Räikkönen F1 comeback confirmed”, 29 November 2011: the Lotus contract and statements.
• SkiddMark, “Kimi Räikkönen joins Lotus Renault GP on a 2-year contract”, 29 November 2011: Kubica’s injury, Boullier’s comment and the drivers waiting on the 2012 seats.
• Autosport, Mark Hughes, “Raikkonen knew what he was doing”, November 2012: the Abu Dhabi win and radio message.
• Autosport, “Kimi Raikkonen to miss rest of 2013 F1 season for back surgery”, November 2013.
• Crash.net, “Raikkonen: First F1 win in five years at US GP came ‘quite easily’”, December 2018.
• GPFans, Eifel Grand Prix records, October 2020: the starts record.
• Autosport, “Kimi Raikkonen to retire from Formula 1 at end of 2021 season”, 1 September 2021 and Sky Sports, 1 September 2021: the retirement announcement and career totals.
• Autosport, “Which F1 driver has the most race starts? Alonso, Hamilton and more”, 25 October 2024: Alonso passing his total in Singapore in 2022, and the starts table.
• The Race, “Alonso extends F1 career into 2027”, September 2026: Alonso’s 440 starts.
• Speedcafe, “Kubica replaces Raikkonen for Dutch GP”, September 2021.
• Speedcafe, “Raikkonen reflects on abrupt F1 swansong”, December 2021 and The National, 12 December 2021: his last race.
• Formula1.com, “Raikkonen becomes Team Principal of Kawasaki motocross squad”, 27 January 2022.
• RacingNews365, “Kimi Raikkonen tastes world championship success in post-F1 role”, 2025: Febvre’s title and the 2023 NASCAR race.
• Formula1.com, “Kimi Raikkonen’s son Robin joins Red Bull’s driver development programme”, 9 September 2026.