Anyhow it turned out that they were wrong, as Kimi Raikikonen just proved to be ready for the big races as time went on for the test-drivings. The first time he got into the Formula One cars was in September 2000.
Kimi performed some superb performances during his debut season. During the year of 2001 racing in the Sauber team, he finished eight times at the top eight! Altogether he got nine points, coming from being 4th in Canada and Austria, then fifth in Great Britain and sixth in Australia, which resulted in the 10th place of position in the Driver´s Championship. After that, many considered Kimi to be a very promising F1 driver for the future.
Continually, the racing teams were now interested of having him in their teams, as finally Ron Dennis signed a contract with the young Finn for the McLaren, Mercedes team in the year of 2002. Kimi was taking the place of none less than the double world champion Mika Häkkinen and many were the eyes who followed the outcome. For the year of 2002 Team McLaren Mercedes got 24 points, which placed Kimi at the 6th place of the Drivers' Championship. He had become 2nd in France and was extremely close to win, if it had not been for some oil at the track of Adelaide hairpin. Then he became 3rd in Australia, Japan and Nürburgring, which was outstanding for such a young racing car driver. Besides that he out-qualified his very experienced team-mate David Coulthare several times.
When the season of 2003 was finished, Michael Schumacher was the winner for the Driver´s Championship, but Kimi Raikkonen had earned a remarkable and an honorable second place, only two points after the winner. His very first F1 victory came in Malaysian Grand Prix. He reached the second place in the Monaco Grand Prix, Brazil, Hungary, Austria, San Marino, Great Britain and in Japan and USA. Next page >>
