A man of rare verbal restraint, Kimi Raikkonen has this year answered critics of his Formula 1 return with the classiest of on-track ripostes. And after that sensational Abu Dhabi win, AUTOSPORT's sister publication F1 Racing convinced Kimi and race engineer Mark Slade to open up

There are no guarantees that a driver returning to F1 after time away will demonstrate the level of performance he'd shown previously. There are always question marks over speed and commitment, and these were all raised when Kimi climbed back into the seat of an F1 car at the start of 2012, after two years away.

But soon we were witnessing familiar flashes of the Iceman's brilliance: the fastest lap towards the end of a race, the charges through the field, another podium and then another. Over the year, he has rarely made a mistake; his speed has been stellar, his consistency metronomic.

source