Kimi Raikkonen Has Driven Enough Race Miles in F1 to Circle the Planet Twice
The 40-year-old Finn started in 2000 and has covered 52,182 race miles so far.
The equatorial circumference of Earth is about 24,901 miles, which means that if we count all race miles Kimi Räikkönen has put into his F1 cars since 2000, he has driven around the world more than twice at-speed. He surpassed this unmatched mark during Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix, but ask him about any of these records and the Iceman will tell you that these stats mean very little to him.
That's hardly surprising. Before the end of this season, Kimi Räikkönen will also hold the record for the most Grand Prix starts, another figure that has very little to do with his current campaign with Alfa Romeo at the age of 40.
Back in September 2000, Räikkönen's first F1 drive came courtesy of Peter Sauber at the Mugello Circuit, after which the FIA issued his Super License for the 2001 season. Räikkönen achieved four points-scoring finishes and eight finishes in the top eight with Sauber before signing a deal with McLaren for 2002.
After becoming a world champion in his debut year at Ferrari in 2007, Räikkönen left Formula 1 in 2010 for a few stints in WRC and NASCAR, only to return to F1 with Lotus for 2012. Having spent another four seasons with Ferrari from 2014 to 2018, Räikkönen landed at Alfa Romeo last year, only to make headlines in 2020 mostly thanks to breaking Michael Schumacher's race lap record with his 16,845th at Silverstone, and Alonso's race distance figure of 52,099 miles with his 52,182.
Noting how he just circled the equatorial circumference of Earth twice in an F1 car, we should all just leave him alone, since Kimi knows what to do.
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