The way it all began...
Here we have a fresh Finnish heroic story where sisu, toughness, trial and companionship is combined. This story has four heros, Kimi, Masa, Paula and Rami.
– Everything happened like in secret. I mean we started this only so we could give the boys a good and a healthy hobby. And then the hobby has grown into bigger and bigger circles, father Räikkönen explains.
Matti Räikkönen is a machineman who is a mechanic with skillful fingers. Paula is a secretary, a woman of action.
– All hobbies are good but driving is tricky because the small boys don't get with their machinery from track to track. If a boy plays ice-hockey you can take turns with other parents, in this hobby it doesn't work. We travelled with these two sometimes even 17 races in one summer and when the distances are what they are it doesn't mean from Friday evening to Sunday, it often means from Wednesday to Sunday, Matti tells.
– When the boys started to drive national races - Kimi was eight - we had to get a van and a trailor so that we could get to the races, Paula continues.
– It took all the time, money and strenght, she calmly says.
Matti worked two or three jobs, drove taxi and was a doorman. Sometimes they had to decide whether to continue the boy's driving business or make an indoor toilet. They didn't and the boys got to continue.
–Once we came all the way from Belgium to Finland with only a Shell credit card. Fortunately the family stuck together! Matti tells.
– Sometimes we had moments of doubts but aren't bad times meant to be won, she challenges.
– We never had the feeling that we should quit. Sometimes we just realised that we don't have enough money. We cried in the telephone to one way and another so that we could continue, Paula talks.
– The family has all the time been very closely together, we have shared both the joy and the sorrow. Because of course there has been sorrow and disappointments too. Winning is a rare treat, Matti defines.The family's inside joke is what Kimi said when they were going home through Italy that 'I will get you a castle from here one day'.
– It came so sincerely from Kimi. And when we came from another race that went bad, Kimi pointed at a castle that was in really bad shape that 'I'll buy you a castle like that mom, I don't have enough money to buy another one', Matti laughs.
There are wild rumours about Kimi's salary at Sauber but it's clear that it's seven- or eight-numbered figures and you could even build a toilet of marble with golden handles with that money.
– We don't have to support Kimi anymore. In that way things got easier about a year ago. Kimi is living on his own earnings and we have definitely noticed that! Räikkönen's say.
– I don't want life to change, I want it to stay as it was before, Matti says.
– This has been Kimi's dream but it was never our dream. We have just lived and helped him the best we could to get forward. In this genre the hunger gets bigger and bigger when you realise that you have talent, you have to take it to the end and see where it takes you, Paula says.
– Many can say that I live through my children. It's not true. We just got a hobby that combined the whole family and it started growing bigger, Matti says.
They both thank their employers who have been flexible and understanding.
– That has been essential to the whole business, it wouldn't have worked out if we couldn't hold our vacations in parts, they say.
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