In his 19th and final season as a Formula 1 driver it wasn’t always easy to recognise Kimi Raikkonen as the champion he is.
Kimi RaikkonenBeat team mate in qualifying6/19Beat team mate in race10/18Races finished18/20Laps spent ahead of team mate658/1057Qualifying margin+0.17sPoints10
But his core strength – that rock-solid race pace – was still very much in evidence. So too were his dependably superb starts, which gained him more than two positions per race on average.
They needed to, because he gave far too much away on Saturdays. Antonio Giovinazzi out-qualified him by a more than two-to-one ratio, and that simply left Raikkonen with too much to do in a car which was eighth-quickest on its best days.
Five races in, Raikkonen was yet to get on the score board. But he took brilliant advantage of a mid-race Safety Car period to pass the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, no less, and kept it behind to the flag.
Raikkonen added another point in Hungary, despite tangling with Nikita…