Clinton, South Carolina, Thursday, August 6, 2020, 1:34 p.m.

I have “encountered” Kimi Raikkonen before. I was about 10 feet away for a media conference at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2011, when, away from Formula One, he tested the waters in a couple NASCAR races, one for trucks and the for what is now the Xfinity Series. I asked a question he didn’t consider noteworthy, which is not unusual. He is a terse Finn, noted for his brief answers.

I found him something of an enigma, which is also not unusual now that I’ve read a biography of the 2007 World Driving Champion, The Unknown Kimi Raikkonen, by Kari Hotakainen.

As you might suspect, it was translated into English.

I grew to like Raikkonen in Hotakainen’s bio. I wish I knew him better, which makes me one of several billion.

Hotakainen is more commonly a novelist, and early in the book, I found it a bit overly simplistic. This was a dubious observation disproved in subsequent reading. Hotakainen made Raikkonen’s spareness with words plausible. The demands of driving in the world’s most popular form of auto racing make being a “character” risky. He is, however, quite humorous, particularly when the paucity of his words is considered.

“These other drivers,” Raikkonen said, “come off a different production line.”

Raikkonen did not come from wealth and privilege. He is from Finland’s second largest city, Espoo, but Espoo is not a burgeoning metropolis as it has a population of only 284,000, which is in the range of Toledo, Ohio. As a boy, his home did not have indoor toiletries. It is uncommon for an F1 driver to rise to the top from humble roots. It is fairly uncommon nowadays for a NASCAR driver to achieve stardom without the benefit of a monied family.

Once Raikkonen was asked, “What was the most exciting situation during this race weekend?”

“The start,” he replied.

“And the most boring?”

“This.”

Another time, after qualifying at Hockenheim (Germany), a writer asked him, “What do the tyres [sic] feel like?”

“They go round as you’d expect,” he said.

Another: “What’s the fifth place on the grid like to start from?”

Answer: “It’s the fifth place.”

Raikkonen, 40, now confronts the end of his career. He has won only two grands prix in the past nine seasons, and his apparent last hurrah was the 2018 United State Grand Prix, his 21^st career victory.

In recent years, Raikkonen has settled down to raise a family with his second wife. Once he was quite the partier, though safely hidden from public attention. Hotakainen devotes a chapter to a 16-day partying adventure during a 3-week break in the F1 schedule. Raikkonen was accompanied during his binge by hockey player Kimmo Pikkareinen through Italy, Bahrain, Switzerland and Finland. One of the participants was the Prince of Bahrain.

One of the quotes in the book is from Raikkonen’s friend Juha Hanski: “When Kimi sets out to have fun, something happens every minute. And he talks nonstop. If he likes a bar, he likes to stay a long time. It can be a bit funny to discover later that we’ve been sitting in the same place for 15 hours.”

Much to my surprise, Raikkonen’s life is comparable to Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly on a grander scale. Those celebrated NASCAR bohemians of yore died in 1970 (plane crash) and 1964 (racing crash), respectively, and never settled down.

It’s a quick read, though the demands of my life meant it took a long time to read it. It wasn’t because I didn’t enjoy it.

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