To celebrate Kimi Raikkonen's wedding to long-time girlfriend Minttu Virtanen at the weekend, we thought we'd tease him a little and look back to when he was just on the cusp of his Formula One career.

Yes, that really is a 21-year-old Raikkonen taking part in winter testing with Sauber in December 2000. He impressed team boss Peter Sauber enough to clinch a race seat with the squad the following year.

Many experts thought that Sauber was showing bad judgement signing up such a young and inexperienced driver to his team, but by the end of the season Raikkonen has picked up nine championship points in his rookie season - and no one was criticising Sauber's decision after that.

In fact Raikkonen's first season had been so eye-catching that Sauber's problem was warding off the team managers lining up to sign up the Finn's services for 2002. In the end it was Ron Dennis who won and duly signed Raikkonen for McLaren. He stayed there for five years before his switch to Ferrari in 2007 where a world title beckoned.

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

Recent Posts

Albon issues grim outlook on Williams’ Austrian chances

Williams’ hopes of using Formula 1’s sweeping 2026 regulations to reignite its fortunes are rapidly…

10 hours ago

Piers Courage: Frank Williams’ first F1 hope

Frank Williams and British motorsport mourned the loss on this day in 1970 of Piers…

12 hours ago

Former F1 driver Guy Edwards, who saved Niki Lauda, dies at 83

Guy Edwards, who competed in 11 Grand Prix events, and celebrated as much for his…

13 hours ago

McLaren ‘raised the bar’ in Barcelona as performance takes priority

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes the team’s disciplined approach and increased attention to detail…

14 hours ago

Perez banking on ‘big package’ in Austria to move Cadillac forward

Sergio Perez believes Cadillac could finally break into Formula 1’s fiercely competitive midfield battle, with…

16 hours ago

'It's everything': Krack admits Aston Martin’s problems run deep

The alarm bells are ringing louder than ever at Aston Martin. What was once billed…

18 hours ago