Kimi Raikkonen started karting in 1987 and after several successes in the Finnish series moved up to compete at international level.

His first steps into car racing were tentative - he made a few starts in Formula Renault UK in 1999 but fund his Mygale chassis uncompetitive and returned to karting. He returned to Britain to compete in the Formula Ford Festival and then won the Formula Renault Winter Series.

That set him up for a return to Formula Renault with top team Manor. Team boss John Booth said: “Kimi had stayed in karts a long time, mainly because he couldn’t raise the money to get out of it until the Robertsons got involved.” Dave and Steve Robertson, father and son, managed Raikkonen’s career.

Raikkonen started the season with third place and then a victory in the first two races. He added six more championships to clinch the title, and left the championship two races before the end of the season with the title already won.

Sauber

Despite Raikkonen’s youth Peter Sauber decided to give the Finnish driver an F1 test. He did so well that it lead to a contract for 2001. Sauber said: “I knew Kimi was fast from his first test at Mugello and after three races I knew he was very ralented, extremely focused and also egotistical. He thinks he is quicker than anybody. All these things add up to him being a good racing driver, although not necessarily a nice one. He was concentrated only on his own success.”

There was one snag: at 21 years old, and with only 23 race starts to his name, Raikkonen had insufficient experience to qualify for the superlicence necessary to race in Formula 1. The FIA granted him a special dispensation conditional on his performances in the first races of the year.

Raikkonen and team mate Nick Heidfeld (himself with only one season of F1 racing behind him) proved an impressive partnership. At the first round of the year Raikkonen finished sixth and Heidfeld fourth. Raikkonen failed to finish the next three races but his maturity and speed impressed the other drivers and governing body and he was granted his superlicence.

McLaren

Heidfeld had reached Formula 1 via McLaren and Mercedes’ young driver schemes. But at the end of 2001 with Mika Hakkinen leaving McLaren it was Raikkonen who got the coveted seat over Heidfeld - McLaren buying his contract for a reported £3.5m. Rumours insisted that Raikkonen had picked McLaren over Ferrari, as he did not want to be number two to Michael Schumacher at the Italian team.

Raikkonen said: “I didn’t want to go to a team as a number two driver because their would be no point going. McLaren have always had the same status for their drivers, none of this business about number one drivers and number twos. If you have one option available, one to go into a team as a number two, and the other to go there on the same level, it’s an easy choice.”

Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo played down the reports: “We are Ferrari, we are the reigning world champions and we would never put a young driver in such an important car.” But six years later Raikkonen would join Ferrari.

The support of fellow Finn Hakkinen played a role in getting Raikkonen the drive. The twice world champion said: “It’s great to have Kimi joining such a fantastic team. I will give him 110% support to help him understand the way it works with the team and I wish him all the best - he is my friend and I will support him.”

Raikkonen’s five years at McLaren would bring him mixed fortunes. The 2002 car, MP4/17, could not compete with Ferrari’s dominant F2002, and reliability was problematic too. He finished third on his McLaren début and made three more appearances on the podium - but had eight car failures in 17 starts. He ended the year six, 17 points behind team mate David Coulthard.

McLaren planned a radical approach for 2003: while the team would start the team with the updated MP4/17D it would develop the radical new MP4/18. However the all-new car proved too radical and never raced; meanwhile the MP4/17D was competitive and generally more reliable - with some exceptions.

Raikkonen raced it to his maiden victory at Sepang and would have won at Interlagos as well had he held off Giancarlo Fisichella in the wet for one more lap. A likely win was lost to engine failure at the Nürburgring but Raikkonen also made crucial mistakes in qualifying at Catalunya and Montreal that left him 20th on the grid for both races.

Because of these problems (and a highly controversial late rules change that compromised tyre supplier Michelin and handed an advantage to Ferrari suppliers Bridgestone) Schumacher beat Raikkonen to the title by 93 points to 91, six victories to Raikkonen’s one.

The following year’s car based on the MP4/18 was a disaster - both unreliable and slow. A revised version of the car in the second half of the season allowed Raikkonen to take his sole win of the year - beating Schumacher on his traditional stomping ground of Spa-Francorchamps.

He was joined at McLaren by Juan Pablo Montoya for 2005 and the team produced a car which, on its day, was untouchable. It was also fragile, and although Raikkonen only retired from two races, several more were compromised by engine failures in qualifying that forced him to start further down the grid.

Fernando Alonso beat him to the world championship, the pair winning seven races each. But Raikkonen’s stirring win at Suzuka from 17th on the grid, passing Fisichella on the final lap, was the highlight of the year.

McLaren solved the reliability problem in 2006 but also well from competitiveness, failing to win a single race. Raikkonen had been in conversation with Ferrari about switching to the Italian team, and at Monza it was confirmed that he would take on one of the toughest challenges in F1 - replacing Schumacher at Ferrari.

Ferrari

The season began brightly with a win for Raikkonen at Melbourne. But in the first half of the season it was clear that team mate Felipe Massa had come to terms with the new 2007 tyres more quickly than Raikkonen, and it took until the eighth round at Magny-Cours for Raikkonen to add another win.

From that point onwards Raikkonen reeled in championship leader Lewis Hamilton, who had replaced him at McLaren. Raikkonen set up a championship finale by winning at Shanghai while a strategic blunder put Hamilton out of the race. With Hamilton suffering a gearbox problem in the last round Massa (who had fallen out of contention for the championship) cleared Raikkonen’s way to win the race and the championship.

Raikkonen remains at Ferrari with Massa in 2008.

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