Kimi Raikkonen’s 2006 McLaren-Mercedes-Benz MP4/21
McLaren requires no introduction here as the legendary Formula 1 team's name was, is, and will remain so eminently familiar to all motor car and motor racing enthusiasts. And here is their contender for the 2006 season's FIA world championship. As raced by Kimi 'The Iceman' Raikkonen, that most popular, highly individual and distinctive Finnish Personality who went on to win the 2007 Formula 1 World Championship with Ferrari.
Designed under the Technical Directorship of Adrian Newey, the MP4-21 is iconic and instantly recognizable with its chrome and red livery. This particular example is chassis 02, a double podium finisher with Raikkonen at the wheel and successfully contested no fewer than eight Grand Prix in the first half of the season.
As always with Kimi, such was his temperament, experienced McLaren insiders could judge within one hour of his initial arrival at the team's garage before any Grand Prix whether or not he was about feature as a front runner or whether he would be relatively disengaged for the entire weekend. The background to this was that towards the end of 2005, he had been involved in negotiations to leave the British team and move to Ferrari for 2007.
Ostensibly Ron Dennis of McLaren had been keen to re-sign the Finn for '07 to join double-World Champion Fernando Alonso there, but Raikkonen's management team left them confused as to his contractual status. They were unsure whether he had signed with Ferrari or not. It was only when the Italian team confirmed that Raikkonen had indeed signed to join them for 2007 that it became clear the deal had been completed the previous year.
Despite this confused situation, it was very apparent from the beginning of his 2006 season with the latest McLaren-Mercedes MP4/21 that he had lost none of his commitment to being an instinctive, seat-of-the-pants Racer with a capital 'R' once the red lights had gone out and the latest GP battle was there to be fought. He was always as dynamically quick as the sleek and powerful car within which he lay, chomping at the bit to win every race in which he felt confident his MP4/21 was in with a real chance to excel. And as the season progressed he would find himself with a real opportunity to win in his McLaren both at Monaco, and later in Hungary. Overall, for the entire 2007 season, his exploits in the McLaren-Mercedes MP4/21s would see him ranked third most outstanding driver in the influential 'Autocourse' annual rankings for the season, behind only Fernando Alonso...and Michael Schumacher.
His season had begun badly during qualifying for the Bahrain GP when MP4/21-2 suffered a rear-suspension failure and left him to start from last position on the starting grid. He promptly overtook eight before the end of the opening race lap, by lap 19 was sixth overall, and by lap 24 third – the podium position in which he finally finished.
In Malaysia, he qualified sixth in the MP4/21-2, only to be clipped by Christian Klien's Red Bull-Ferrari RB2 on the first lap, which forced him into retirement due to damaged suspension. In Round 3 in Australia, he pursued Fernando Alonso's leading Renault R26, tracking him in second place around the Melbourne circuit from laps 25 to 33, and then again from lap 38 to the finish at 57 laps, securing his second podium position of the season in the MP4/21-2.
The San Marino race at Imola, on Italian soil, saw Kimi qualify this car eighth fastest on the starting grid, but [post-race] he would say: "I was not entirely happy with my car and was not able to go for it. My start was not very good and I lost a couple of positions, then traffic hampered my progress. After the second stop the car improved quite a bit and became easier to drive, so I could start pushing again. However, I got stuck behind Felipe Massa (Ferrari) and to overtake here at Imola is virtually impossible" – he finished fifth.
Fifth place in qualifying at the Nürburgring launched Kimi into another strong performance in which he – and MP4/21-2 – led for four laps before he was hampered by an indifferent team tire choice, despite having set the second-fastest lap time of the entire race. Team executive Martin Whitmarsh admitted: "We went for too hard a tire – and if we'd selected the right one from Michelin's portfolio Kimi could have beaten the Ferraris...".
In Spain, ninth place on the starting grid posed an immediate handicap come race day. Regardless, the flying Finn made another of his storming starts – passed four rivals before the end of the opening lap and was running third by the 20th time round, only to drop back to a fifth-place finish... this time behind the two works Renaults of race winner Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella and the twin Ferraris of Schumacher and Massa. The Finn described it as "an uneventful race for me".
The Monaco GP followed, and it was there that Kimi Raikkonen became one of the stars of the legendary race, in typically unconventional ways. He qualified his MP4/21-2 third fastest, on the second grid-row with only Fernando Alonso's untouchable Renault R26 and Mark Webber's Williams FW28 on the front row ahead of him. World Champion-elect Alonso knew that the man he really had to worry about was Raikkonen in this McLaren-Mercedes. As the leaders hurtled into Ste Devote corner to begin their second lap, the Finn dodged out from behind the Williams and slipped audaciously past, the car's right-side wheels shaving the trackside barrier as he did so.
By the end of lap 3 Raikkonen was within 0.4 seconds of Alonso's leading Renault. Kimi remained right behind the leading Renault until lap 22 when he made his first stop – being refueled in those days in 10.2secs.
By lap 33 the leaders were lapping backmarkers. On lap 44 Mark Webber's Williams coasted to a steaming halt on the hill towards the Casino. The safety car was deployed, and it was then that the cooling system on Raikkonen's McLaren became overtaxed by the slow running in such hot conditions. Following another routine refueling stop, a heat shield in the car's engine bay caught fire, damaging the wiring loom. With smoke and steam gushing from the car the dismayed Finn pulled onto the tiny right-side curb in Mirabeau Inférieur corner, below the Loew's Hairpin, where a marshal smothered the McLaren in extinguisher foam. From there Kimi coasted down the hill and pulled off into an escape area on the right of the track.
His race run, the Finn then clambered from this car's cockpit, and without any thought of returning to the team's pit, he strolled instead round to the Monte Carlo harbourside where he simply boarded his private yacht, showered – and relaxed. This incident, with the puzzled – and concerned – McLaren team left wondering just where on earth their star driver that weekend had gone to, has since become the stuff of Formula 1 legend.
Subsequently, Kimi Raikkonen would campaign alternative new MP4/21s in the British GP at Silverstone and at Indianapolis in the USA before returning to chassis 2 for the French round at Magny-Cours. There, from sixth place on the grid, he ran as high as fourth on raceday, before again finishing fifth overall – while this time declaring himself "...very happy with the car's handling overall".
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