Formula One Features — October 2018

Kimi Raikkonen's victory in the United States Grand Prix was one of the most popular I've witnessed in my many years in the sport. Although the huge press room of the Circuit of the Americas was sparsely populated - and with not one single Finnish journalist sitting there, as the TV crew was already out in the paddock - it erupted into spontaneous applause when the Ferrari driver crossed the finish line, to put an end to a 113 Grand Prix winless streak.

"It is what it is", is a sentence you can be certain to hear every time you get to talk with Valtteri Bottas or Kimi Raikkonen. More than the other drivers, the Finns are extremely pragmatic people, who don't dwell on what should, could or might have been. What matters for them is the present and the future, because there's nothing they can do to change the past.