October 21 isn’t just an ordinary date in the life of Kimi Matias Raikkonen. It happens to be significant in more than a way. Back in 2007, a period so far back when Lewis Hamilton had just arrived in the sport with McLaren, Kimi Raikkonen took his maiden and only career title with Ferrari. It’s been two decades since that mega win at Interlagos where the “Iceman” lifted his swanky win and no other driver has happened to win another championship with the Scuderia family. But the other reason why October 21 matters, also by the way the month marking his b’day (1979), is that it happens to be the date of his last ever Grand Prix victory in the top flight of motor racing. That came in 2018.
It was under the bright Texan sun at the Circuit of the Americas where on the 21st of October, Kimi waltzed to his 21st career win and his last as a Ferrari driver. A year later, he’d move to where it all began for the Espoo-born: switching to Sauber (then renamed to Alfa Romeo, albeit powered by Ferrari) for a three year stint before retiring from the sport altogether in 2021.
That said, winning a race is one thing, but winning the US Grand Prix was special in many ways for the Iceman. For starters, he wasn’t even on pole at Austin, home to the first ever purpose built track meant exclusively for F1 racing.
It was Mercedes’ icon, Lewis Hamilton who bagged pole, followed by Ferrari’s then driver Sebastian Vettel, who positioned his SF 71H just behind the blazing Silver Arrows.
Raikkonen meanwhile, had to settle for a third; he’d manage a 1:33:307 in comparison to his teammate’s 1:32:298, with the gap between the two being hardly any.
But then in a sport where the barest of margins can lead to big wins, Kimi created something special right at the start come Sunday, October 21!
However, the balmy Texas weather sparkled a touch of fortune for the one who’d persisted all along; Vettel would unfortunately receive a grid penalty, the German stymied by a three-place grid drop thus promoting a quietly confident Raikkonen up into second.
The magic would soon begin for the Scuderia stable even if one may have suspected what would a 39-year-old do to contain Hamilton, the pole sitter, with the Italian team’s main driver having fallen back.
Within seconds from the start as the five lights went green and Hamilton moved to the left to cut Kimi off, the Ferrari driver dived down the inside, to clinch track position even before the battling duo crossed turn 1.
To those naysayers who had spent perhaps an entire season growing beer bellies and ridiculing the old guard at Ferrari, this wasn’t good news, even though it was a supreme turn of events for Ferrari courtesy its famously laconic driver.
From that point on until the next 55 laps, both Hamilton and later, Verstappen tried all they could to waltz past Kimi Raikkonen. But on October 21, he was untouchable.
Demonstrating excellent tyre management on what’s probably a trickier track than what most of us believe as not a lot is spoken about COTA in comparison to a Barcelona, or Hungaroring, Kimi Raikkonen kept his cool.
There was pressure from behind as a fast charging Hamilton was catching up, but Raikkonen had created well over 2.5 seconds worth of gap even before half distance to further consolidate his position as race leader.
In the end, not only did Ferrari achieve a race win at the back of a cool triumph of its Iceman, Kimi Raikkonen broke a record that not many would have cherished given how long it took the former Lotus driver to achieve his bouquet of massive regards in America.
Prior to the October 21 US GP victory, the last that Kimi Raikkonen won a Grand Prix was back in 2013 in Australia, the season opener of the year with Lotus Renault.
That the win at COTA came 5 years, 7 months, and 28 days after the icy cool triumph on the streets of Melbourne was in some ways a massive reprieve.
Which also explains why Raikkonen himself expressed, if only for a change, how relieved he was in getting that mega win.
In the final moments of the 56-lap battle at Texas, when Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene, perhaps one of the most underrated team bosses at Ferrari ever, congratulated the race winner, saying, “Hey Iceman..well done.. well done my friend,” Kimi would reply, “F****ng finally!”
