Years and decades go by and Kimi Räikkönen remains proportionally among the most loved and supported F1 drivers. Certainly the most likeable one, the champion most exploited by commercials, advertising, the most caressed by memes in social media, the most brought up in anecdotes, alcoholic mythology and occasional aphorism fed by his short, surreal and fulminating statements, which now make up the sweet and fragrant part of the character.
A different and twisted icon, compared to all the others. Out-of-system, absolutely autonomous and ungovernable. Irreducible, as well as alien to any form of bootlicking, servility and opportunism.
Kimi is Kimi, period. He has his flaws, but nothing like those of certain, many, too many colleagues. He can be rented for a commercial, of course he can, but he’s not for sale. On the contrary, right in the “Iceman” commercials, in some ways from a media point of view, he manages to give his best, even dressed as Santa Claus, or around Monte Carlo with the Alfa, ready to tell the woman of his life, as a perfect and enjoyable smartass, that his delay is due to the lack of knowledge of the streets of the Principality. More. This winter precisely Kimi, advertising in hand, turns out to be the most visible, talkative and captivating driver of all, since the others, among other, have practically all disappeared, for their stories, waiting for Formula One to start roaring again. However, at a time like this, in which in fact motoristically speaking it does not happen a shred of nothing in the Circus, some considerations come spontaneously.
The first one. To begin with, Kimi Räikkönen as poster boy is much better exploited by Alfa Romeo than by Ferrari. Of course, the Reds don’t sell themselves with commercials, scrapping or eco-incentives, they’re so desirable that it wouldn’t make sense to pay someone to make them want more, but the basic feeling is that within Alfa Romeo Racing and alongside the glorious Biscione Quadrifogliato brand at this moment in his life, as a new forty-year-old, the slightly non-alcoholic and very blond man is much more at ease with the light-hearted aplomb that is required of him compared to team orders, the tactical-political ties and the harnesses he was wearing before. When he performed at the side and, much more often, behind his dear friend Sebastian Vettel, in the shadow of the Prancing Horse.
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