Kimi Raikkonen’s second stint with Ferrari has been long on frustration and short on victories.
That finally changed on Sunday at the US Grand Prix where the Finnish driver earned his first win in five years, while a good enough day from Ferrari and a late block from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen denied Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton a fifth career Formula One championship.
A former world champion with Ferrari, Raikkonen hadn’t won after his return to the team in 2014 while teammate Sebastian Vettel fought Hamilton for the championship the last two seasons.
Raikkonen’s most previous win had been with Lotus at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in 2013. He’d driven his Ferrari to three second-place finishes this season before Sunday’s victory.
Success finally came with a muscular performance by both driver and car on a day when Hamilton could have clinched the championship with a sixth US Grand Prix in seven years.
Raikkonen seldom cracks a smile or shows much emotion, but he shouted an expletive on the team radio after the final lap. He was then his typical stoic self after a brief victory celebration at the podium.
“It’s nice to win. It doesn’t change my life,” Raikkonen said. “The biggest difference is how people look at you.”
For Hamilton, a rare defeat in Austin means his fight with Vettel for the championship continues to this coming weekend at the Mexican Grand Prix. Hamilton finished third and Vettel was fourth to stretch Hamilton’s championship lead to 70 points with three races left.
Hamilton is trying to match Argentina’s Juan Manuel Fangio, whose five championships in the 1950s rank second in F1 history. Only Germany’s Michael Schumacher has more with seven.
Hamilton could have won the championship even without a race victory if he’d finished at least eight points ahead of Vettel. The late blocking move by Verstappen and Vettel’s charge past Mercedes’ Vallteri Bottas in the final laps kept the championship alive.
Verstappen started 18th after damaging his car in qualifying and worked his way through the field to finish second, his fourth podium finish in six races. “At that turn, I was pushing as much as I could,” Verstappen said. “I was really hanging on.”
Hamilton started on pole position but quickly lost position to Raikkonen on the first turn. The Mercedes tried to squeeze Raikkonen to the inside on the bolt uphill out of the start, but the Ferrari nosed ahead into the left turn into the slingshot back downhill.
Vettel was under pressure from the beginning. He started fifth because of a three-spot grid penalty for driving too fast while under a red flag during a Friday practice.
Vettel at first looked like he tried to make up too much, too soon. A bump with Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo caused Vettel to spin and dropped him to ninth, and the gap looked like it would be too much to overcome.
Raikkonen’s ability to keep Hamilton behind him gave Vettel new life and the chance to make the late pass on Bottas. “I’m really happy for Kimi,” Vettel said.
Raikkonen won the season championship with Ferrari in 2008, a title that came down to the last race of the season. He rejoined Ferrari at a time the Italian team was lagging far behind Mercedes.
Raikkonen will be leaving Ferrari to join Sauber after this season, moving from a car capable of winning to a team that is rarely competitive. Raikkonen said he has no hard feelings toward Ferrari.
“I’m very happy where I’m going. I won the championship with Ferrari,” Raikkonen said. “As a driver I want different challenges.”
The result didn’t come as a shock to Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff who was quick to congratulate Raikkonen on his win.
“It has been a long time since we saw him on the top step and it was great for Formula One to have him up there. All week, we have heard people talking us up, talking Ferrari down and talking as if this season is a foregone conclusion; but that narrative doesn’t fit the reality of Formula One.
“We have been wary and respectful of Ferrari at every race this year and we knew they would come here to fight back hard - and so they did. It wasn’t a surprise against competitors of such strength.”
Hamilton later said he enjoyed the track action but not the result. “It was actually a really fun race, to be close with Kimi and have a bit of a battle with him and Max,” he said. “It was quite cool that it was Ferrari, Red Bull and us battling for positions and it must have been exciting to watch.
“Naturally, I’m a bit disappointed in our performance, to have started first but finished third, but I’m still grateful that I managed to finish up ahead of Seb.
“In the race, we were lacking pace on the straights, but I gave it everything. I was still pushing like crazy and that’s what racing is all about.
“I had one little chance at the end, but I had to give Max a lot of space because it’s better to finish third than get taken out by someone who’s not fighting for the championship, so I didn’t want to take that risk. We were going for the win, but it wasn’t meant to be.
“We’re going to Mexico next - it’s such a beautiful place, but I haven’t always had the best results there, so I definitely want to win that race. I don’t care when you win a championship … just that you win.”
