Here’s one for those who like chuckling at floppy youth hairstyles: six videos showing 2007 F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen and runner-up Lewis Hamilton in their karting days.
Some of their strongest characteristics are already plain to see – Raikkonen’s laid-back reticence and wry smile are much in evidence. Behind the wheel Hamilton’s attacking, opportunistic race craft is as plain to see around the Buckmore Park karting circuit nine years ago as it was at Interlagos last October.
Enjoy the films and do let me know if you find any more – it would be great to see some full race footage of Raikkonen as there is of Hamilton.
Lewis Hamilton
I’ve posted some videos of Lewis Hamilton karting earlier – here are three more.
The first two are from the 1998 JICA championship. Both show Hamilton taking wins, but he lost the championship to Fraser Sheader, partly because of a kart failure in one round. Also racing that year were Alex Lloyd (who won the Indy Pro Series this year before being signed by IRL team Chip Ganassi Racing) and Christian Bakkerud (who raced in GP2 this year).
The third is a feature that was on Blue Peter in 2001.
Kimi Raikkonen
These Raikkonen videos are all in Finnish but the latter has English subtitles. The second one, which is also dated 1998, shows Raikkonen working on his kart and the third is part of a documentary on Finnish successes in motor racing.
Related links
Michael K
13th December 2007, 13:33
Just a little point, the last Kimi video is in Portugese…
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
13th December 2007, 13:45
Ah thank you I had no idea!
If anyone who’s familiar with Finnish or Portuguese notices anything interesting in the videos do let us know…
Wesley
13th December 2007, 21:41
From a tiny green shack to 50 million a year.
Under 25 races in formula Renault and earns a superlicence.
The more I read and hear about Kimi,the more I like him.