Kimi Raikkonen won the World Championship driving Ferrari in 2007 and since then no other driver has achieved the feat.
Kimi Raikkonen was surprised by the fact that he remains Ferrari’s most recent F1 World Champion. The Finnish racing driver clinched the title while driving Ferrari in 2007. He beat the McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso by one point.
While Raikkonen is proud of his achievement, he does not feel that winning the championship changed his life apart from how people viewed him.
A lot of the attention and focus today is on Max and Ham but today will also be kimi raikkonen’s final race before he retires, he won the 2007 F1.
Happy retirement Kimi👏🏾#F1OnDStv pic.twitter.com/CovN6nVHqO— Theo (@Theo_mwangi) December 12, 2021
“Obviously it’s nice,” Raikkonen said in the ‘Beyond The Grid’ podcast. “It’s one of the concerns why all of us are here.”
“Unfortunately, one wins every year, and [if you look at the] history, there’s a lot of the same people who seemed to be winning most of them.
“It’s something I always wanted to do, and I achieved it. Also with Ferrari, I think it was nice to win with them, definitely.
“But it looks better on paper than it makes any difference in my life, in many ways. People might look [at] you differently because you have won, rather than if you don’t. It doesn’t really make any sense.”
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Kimi Raikkonen has no regrets
At the end of the 2009 season, Raikkonen left Ferrari after which he spent two years away from F1. However, he returned to the Italian giants for a second stint between 2014 and 2018.
When asked if he was surprised to be Ferrari’s most recent champion, Raikkonen said, “yeah, but that’s just how it happened.”
“They’ve come close, sometimes. But when I left there in 2018, I said [that] I wish them all the best and hope they will change that soon, but it hasn’t happened yet. But, who knows, maybe next year [or] in the near future [it will change].”
2007 was the only year when he won a championship in his career. However, despite this, he has no regrets about not winning any more.
“I don’t care, really,” Raikkonen responded after being quizzed on whether his talent deserved more titles.
“I mean, I said it always that I wouldn’t change [anything], even if I [could]. It wouldn’t mean that I win more races or championships, because change one thing and I don’t think we would be here today.
“So my life would probably be different. I tried and failed a few times, but that’s a part of racing.”
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