(…)
(Travelling with his good friend Kalle Jokinen, Räikkönen’s mechanic during his karting years)
The two of them set off to London in a battered Renault Clio for an agreed meeting with David Robertson. The location for the meeting was the Thistle Hotel in Brands Hatch. Robertson’s son Steve had himself been on the race track in 1990 (among other occasions) in the British F3 series during the so-called “Mika-Mika” year when the Finns Mika Häkkinen and Mika Salo had been fighting for overall victory in the competition. The Räikkönen/Jokinen conquest of the world looked as if it had come to a premature halt at the border crossing between Holland and France, when the vehicle’s Dutch number plates turned out to be a problem. The border guard waved his hand at the two Finnish passports and looked at the car.
“Those passports and this car. Hmmm… I’ve nothing that tells me whether you have permission to drive that vehicle,” he said. The two Finns had no choice but to turn the car around and set off back in the direction they‘d come, searching the map for other border crossing points.

(…)
People working close to them said that the Robertsons’ behaviour towards Räikkönen was akin to worship. It was difficult for them to say anything remotely negative about their protégé, whatever actually happened. This approach was perhaps based on the early stage of their relationship and the Renault Formula competition in which Räikkönen’s success was more the rule than the exception. On one occasion, when Kimi failed to gain pole position on the starting grid, the Robertsons investigated. They recalled that Räikkönen had taken a phone call just before the time trials. The party on the other end was eventually identified as Paula, Kimi’s mother, and the subject as a difference of opinion over his girlfriend of the moment. According to Räikkönen, he shouted at his managers, demanding that his private affairs should never again be interfered with in such a way. Although David Robertson was obviously only trying his best to find out whether something was wrong, Räikkönen was clearly upset about the way that things had been handled.