Kimi Matias Raikkonen born on October 17th, 1979 in Espoo, Finland is an outstanding Formula One racer with a string of successes to his credit.Raikkonen the born winner started off karting at an early age and continued participating in several races. Displaying his amazing racing skills in 1999 European Formula Super A championship, Raikkonen finished 2nd. Thereafter he continued his winning spree, winning first four races in 2000 British Formula Renault Winter series, and in 2000 Formula Renault UK Championship, Raikkonen won seven of ten events. With that he achieved a grand 56 percent win rate - winning 13 of 23 events in all.These spectacular results have straight away landed him a Formula One racing berth. Peter Sauber took a daring step in signing Raikkonen for his Sauber-Petronas team in 2001, which he test-drove it in 2000.But F1 critics including FIA president Max Mosley expressed dismay over granting an F1 superlicence to Kimi Raikkonen, as he had only 23 car races to his credit. Trying to prove his critics wrong, Raikkonen made a flying start in his debut 2001 Australian Grand Prix and finished 6th in the race.In 2002, he switched over to McLaren-Mercedes Team and raced for them from 2002 to 2006. Giving out the best of his performances in racing, Raikkonen finished 2nd conceding the title to Michael Schumacher in 2003 Formula One World Drivers' Championship. In 2005 Formula One championship Raikkonen repeated the feat and again finished, this time conceding the title to Fernando Alonso of Renault team.Ferrari is proud to have signed a three-year deal with Kimi Raikkonen, in which both were rewarded in his debut season with the FIA Formula One driver and constructors titles in 2007.
