Kimi Raikkonen’s breakthrough year racing Formula Renault in 2000

An absolute favourite among fans and across the Formula 1 paddock, Ferrari’s last F1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen had to prove his talent in the junior categories to earn his place in the top flight, where - two decades later - he still remains one of the most popular drivers ever!

And earn his breakthrough he did in epic style in his 2000 championship year in British Formula Renault 2.0.

Born in October 1979, Kimi spent just four seasons in Nordic karting series where his natural talent was immediately evident. Between 1995 and 1998, the Finn won four championships and ended third in another.  

Come late-’98 and 19-year old Raikkonen looked to expand his horizons. Following a Formula Ford Festival outing, he took on a new challenge in the 1999 Formula Renault 2.0 UK Winter Series. That proved easy pickings for young Kimi, who took four wins from four race starts to take the title with flying honours.

That set the flying Finn up for a tilt at the British Formula Renault championship in the year 2000. Raced over twelve rounds at eight of the finest circuits the UK has to offer, the series was regarded as a grooming ground for future F1 stars and took in two rounds each at Brands Hatch, Donnington, Oulton Park and Silverstone and one apiece at Knockhill in Scotland, as well as at Thruxton, Croft and Snetterton.  

20 years old by then, Kimi paired up with Manor Motorsport, another name set to become familiar to F1 fans. British Formula Renault back then raced a field of petite, identical, state of the art 560kg carbon fibre Tatuus FR2000 chassis powered by 190bhp 2-litre Renault race engines to offer a serious blend of agility and might. Throw 31 of the hottest racing talents into the pot, light the blue touch paper and step back five paces….  

Yet in spite of the challenge of jumping straight from karts into what was then a serious main circuit wings and slicks formula, as with the rest of his early career young, young Kimi proved almost unstoppable. The class of 2000 first visited Brands Hatch where Raikkonen put on the podium with third and took two bonus points for the fastest lap of the race.

Two weeks later, round two at Donnington saw Raikkonen back to his unstoppable Winter Series self as he delivered a dominant drive to take the win off pole position with the fastest lap to boot. 

Nothing changed at the UK’s fastest circuit Thruxton a week later as Kimi stormed to another a clean sweep and a second followed at Knockhill, before another dose of triple honours at round five at Oulton Park.  

A third place without the reward of either a fastest lap or a pole position would prove Raikkonen’s worst performance of the year at Silverstone’s round six, but he returned with a vengeance to win the next four rounds on the trot, took pole each time and the fastest lap in three of these four races too.  

He had already wrapped up the championship by round ten at Brands Hatch, having won winning seven of the ten rounds he raced, but Raikkonen had put it on the podium in every outing as he romped the title with 316 points versus closest rival Ryan Dalziel’s 260.  

His run in British Formula Renault 2.0 in 2000 caught Peter Sauber’s keen talent spotting eye and the Swiss team owner offered Kimi a series of tests in his F1 car at Mugello, Jerez and Barcelona. 

Unsurprisingly, Raikkonen impressed and impressed further still with each and every outing in a F1 car, so much so that he drove himself into 2001 Sauber Formula 1 seat. That in spite of just one season of main circuit racing and much to the chagrin of critics dismayed Raikkonen’s apparent lack of real race inexperience.  

Nonetheless, Kimi earned a F1 Super License and he went on to take the mammoth step into Formula 1 quite literally by the horns and the rest, they say is history. Now twenty years later, Kimi Raikkonen may have taken a roundabout trip to get here through his last Ferrari World Driver’s title in 2007, 21 Grand Prix wins, 103 F1 podiums 18 pole positions, 46 fastest laps in everything from a Sauber to a McLaren, a Lotus and two stints at Ferrari even a wild detour via NASCAR and the World Rally Championship,  

Now he is back for yet another with Sauber Alfa Romeo and thrilling his millions of fans every weekend with his incredible pace as much as his stone-faced attitude to life, starting with the Swiss team's new car launch tomorrow ahead of testing this week in Barcelona.

Kimi is without shadow of doubt a Paddock Legend of the first order. (Photo: Red Bull)