Raikkonen finally gets world crown

China Daily | Updated: 2007-10-23 07:17

SAO PAULO: Kimi Raikkonen never gave up his dream of winning the Formula One world championship even when all the odds seemed stacked against him.

Ferrari's 28-year-old Finnish 'Iceman', twice before a runner-up in the title standings with his former team McLaren, finally reaped the rewards on Sunday with victory in the Brazilian season-ender.

After trailing McLaren's Lewis Hamilton by 17 points before the previous Chinese Grand Prix, Raikkonen took the maximum score from the last two races of the season to emerge as champion by a single point.

"For sure we were not in the strongest position at some parts of the season but we always believed that we could recover, that we could do a better job than the others," he said.

"Even in hard times everybody was sticking together and we didn't give up."

The Finn, whose love of partying is as well-documented as his monosyllabic approach to the media, paid tribute to his team and said he would not let the success change him or his lifestyle.

"It's not going to really change my life too much," he told a news conference.

"People will probably try to make up more stories about me but I'm not going to change myself. I never did before and it's not going to happen in the future.

"I lead my life as I want and that's it. For sure, we are going to have a big party, not just here but next week... it's been a long season and it's hard to realize that we finally did it after many years.

"It was not really in our mind to be a world champion because I was so far away," said Raikkonen, who recognized that his luck had finally turned after all the disappointments of the past.

The Finn, who stepped into retired seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher's shoes this season after five years with McLaren, echoed his German predecessor in saying the Italian team felt like a family to him.

"I enjoy every moment with the team," said Raikkonen, the first driver since the late Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio to win the championship in his first season with Ferrari.

"I have enjoyed Formula One much more this year than I enjoyed the last few years, for many reasons - not because of the driving, but for some other reasons.

"I'm more than happy to win the championship with Ferrari, especially in the first year with the team.

"It is such a nice big family, great people to work for. I'd rather win with them than anyone else," added Raikkonen, whose victory at Interlagos was his sixth of the year.

The triumph came at the end of an emotionally charged and controversial season, with Ferrari winning the constructors' championship after McLaren was stripped of all its points for a spying scandal.

Hamilton upbeat

Hamilton refused to be downhearted after dramatically missing out on the Formula One title in his first season and promised to bounce back next year.

"It's been a crazy year and I honestly can't say I'm really, really gutted," he told reporters. "I'm not."

Hamilton could manage only seventh in the Interlagos sunshine as Raikkonen won the race and the title.

"I finished second in the world championship, I beat my teammate, under extremely difficult circumstances. I beat the two-time world champion, that was the goal," said Hamilton.

"I have every confidence we can go into next year with a good car and we can do a good job or an even better job.

"We'll be even better prepared and the team are going to keep pushing, I'm going to keep pushing. We've got the experience now, we can start afresh."

Hamilton started in the front row but dropped into eighth at the end of the first lap after running wide as Alonso forced his way through.

The Briton then slowed dramatically eight laps later and plunged into 18th place, leaving him fighting a desperate rearguard battle to claw his way back into the points.

"I went into the race and I said to myself that, whatever happens, it's been a hell of a year, and who would have thought that I would be leading the world championship going into the last race," Hamilton said.

"The team have done a phenomenal job all year. It's been amazing, it's been a huge rollercoaster ride.

"For sure, we all wanted to win, we wanted to win the World Cup, we wanted to win the world championship, it's obviously not England's turn this year," he said, referring to England's defeat by South Africa in Saturday's rugby World Cup final.

Agencies