It was Nico Rosberg who did the outing. We had been talking about his father, Keke, who lifted the 1982 Formula One word championship in 1982, despite winning only one race. Rosberg junior, recalling the Flying Finn's win in Dallas in 1984, said: "It was 40 degrees and while the other drivers wore refrigerated suits, Dad was bare-chested in the sun, smoking a cigarette."

Old fashioned expressions were exchanged but no one smoked in the paddock these days. Surely there had not been a smoker in the sport since Jan Magnussen in the late 1990s. "No, you're wrong," said Rosberg. "There's one driver who lights one cigarette after another. I'm not naming names."

But who could this be? This is F1 2012 and today's drivers look like toothpicks in overalls. They have never been this fit. We spend as much time talking to Jenson Button about his triathlons as we do discussing his racing. Surely no one in F1 actually smokes? And then someone mentioned the name of Kimi Raikkonen, the party animal, and everyone started sniggering. "Yes, that's it, it must be Kimi!"

This, of course, may have been an awful slander. Raikkonen may not smoke at all. But, somehow, the notion fitted. Because the Finn is the throwback driver in the paddock. In the last race, in Abu Dhabi, his race engineer came on the radio to tell him about Fernando Alonso, who was chasing him down in his Ferrari. The Finn, the world champion of 2007, did not take kindly to that. "Just leave me alone," he said, impatiently. "I know what I'm doing."

Later in the afternoon the same engineer, this time a little more nervously, decided to make another communication, this time telling him to remember to warm up his new set of tyres. "Yes, yes, yes, yes," came the irritated response. "I'm doing all the tyres. You don't have to remind me every second."

After the race, when the 33-year-old Raikkonen had won a grand prix for the 19th time, Button reflected on his old rival. "I don't speak to him very often because I don't normally get an answer. He's a man of few words. But I flew back from Korea to Japan with him recently and I had a couple of beers with him and he opened up. He's a good guy."

But why is he so quiet? Maybe he was shy, Button was asked. "I think he's insecure," he said. "But he really deserved to win. He's been so close all year and I've been saying all year that Lotus are going to win a race. I just didn't say it at Abu Dhabi. Kimi is a true racer. He came back for the racing, which is great. He doesn't enjoy anything else in the sport, it seems, apart from the party afterwards if he wins. So I'm happy for him. He hasn't been in that position for a while."

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