Gino Rosato reveals his unique friendship with Kimi Raikkonen: hockey, drinks and trust. Gino Rosato opened up about his deep friendship with Kimi Raikkonen.

A very profound friendship
The son of Kimi Raikkonen, ‘Ace’ Matias, seems to have inherited his father’s driving talent and during race weekends he is often accompanied by Gino Rosato, who developed a truly special bond with the 2007 Formula 1 world champion to the point of becoming the godfather of Raikkonen’s first-born child with his wife Minttu.

Guest on the YouTube channel ‘Pit-Stop’, the former Ferrari figure explained in simple words why the spark immediately struck between him and Kimi Raikkonen.

“I was the one, together with Jean Todt, who first spoke secretly with him at Monza to bring him to Ferrari and I became his guide in Maranello. From there we built an incredible friendship – explained Rosato – and the same thing happened with Felipe Massa and with Charles Leclerc. Why did the spark strike with Raikkonen? We are both northerners, I come from Canada and he is Finnish, so we immediately talked about hockey, and for both of us it was normal to have drinks, while he was really a specialist in that, even if now it is no longer the case. He did not care about anything except driving and he always trusted me to deal with all the dirty work and with the politics that he never wanted to handle.”