Karting on snow with Raikkonen

Snow-karts? Really?

We knew not what to expect even as the mini-coach graunched its way into the mountains, creaking mightily as steering lock strained the diff. Kimi Raikkonen? In winter? No word-pictures sprung to mind.

I always imagined the 'Kimster' to be in Dubai come December and January, or perhaps in some remote castle in darkest Finland. I mean, he isn't your ordinary person, let alone your classic, 2018 racing driver. He isn't affected; he isn't interested in celebrity; he once even told me, late at night in darkest Sao Paulo, that he doesn't really like F1.

So what does get him out of bed? Two spread-eagled balcony windows, so I'm told, perfectly designed to enable him to fall from mattress to swimming pool in one easy movement. And driving. Fast cars and F1 cars specifically, give or take a motocross bike, a decent rally car and a snowmobile or two.

The rest of life, I guess I always imagined, is something that Kimi merely tolerates. A corporately induced Instagram account but not for him Twitter or Facebook. Just lie low. Say nothing.

This, though, is after all a 2018-spec Raikkonen. Lots of people give him lots of flak for not being as consistently quick as Sebastian Vettel, but I'm not one of them. For the reasons above, and also because he's still about the only fast racing driver in the world who would be able successfully to play a second-tier role to Vettel - and when I say 'fast' I mean 'fast enough to take the pole in Monaco' - I'm still glad that Raikkonen is around.

True, I'm looking forward to seeing Charles Leclerc race for Ferrari. Cramped Vettel's style will thereafter be, assuming the multi-world champion is prepared to stick around for the dogfight. For now, though - for the era in which Ferrari is still living with the honour of running a four-time champion (even if none of those titles was won in a red car) - we have what we have: the great Vettel with another world champion alongside him who isn't allowed to be (a) faster; (b) annoying; (c) more popular than his team-mate or (d) more dextrous than Vettel.

So what do we have in this latest F1 rendition of the Great Kimster?

As I say, I'm not sure. I step tentatively out of the bus into the soft snow, squinting within the cloud cover. A film crew - not ours - mills around outside. Lots of Shell people, with name tags on red lanyards, hustle about.

"You need to check-in here and kit-out there. They'll give you a helmet, gloves and a jacket."

I point out that I've brought my own Arai and A-star gloves.

"Should be OK. Health and Safety, you know. Can't be too sure..."

Raikkonen, I see, is inside the Welkom Center, near an open fire, chatting to Ferrari people. Team jacket and cap. Very corporate.

Outside, snow slants across the little stadium. Our crew set up cameras, drone and mics. I stand there, a pawn, as they check positions and sound levels. My teeth chatter.

"OK. Ready? Here's Kimi."

He wanders over. There's a smile and then a laugh as he describes the hectic drive over from Zug in his rear-wheel-drive Alfa.

As the cameras run he plays the teamster to perfection, saying not much but actually filling the spaces with enough laughs to keep us happy. Ferrari is tight these days on what the drivers are and are not allowed to talk about - and about what you, the journalist, are allowed to ask them - so we both keep to script. Shell has invited us; it would be churlish not to oblige.

There are, though, some moments: "If I didn't want to win I wouldn't be racing. It'll be nice to start again with a clean sheet..." and, when I ask him about oversteer versus keeping-it-clean, "of course I like to slide the car a bit."

We switch to the karts. Raikkonen asks me to lead away, then to wave him through. Sitting behind him - for a corner or so - I watch his natural balance and feel. Years ago I was mesmerised by Allan McNish in his karting days at Rye House in the wet, and the image remains: Raikkonen's subtle initial flick initiates a perfect, neutral balance. This is what we see now: Kimi the 14-year-old karter, absolutely the artist.

Later he is with his entourage: he works the partner's guests as smoothly as he complies with the next Ferrari request. Over lunch - pasta and salad - he sits by the fire, explaining the banalities of simulators to a Shell man of privilege. He speaks much; he says little. He's the perfect Ferrari clone.

Really?

The layers remain... until now. Now he's standing alone, awaiting a short Q&A. Ferrari jacket and cap. Puma race boots dry by the fire; black trainers, black joggers.

I ask him about rallying and his eyes light up. "I love the rally cars. I would like to try the new ones. One day again."

And I talk to him about kids, comparing notes. "Robin is already riding the bike in the house, around everything. Not hitting anything. And he wants to sit next to me in the Alfa, with his own steering wheel. I don't do it yet but he is pushing me hard."

He laughs the Kimi laugh and stares into the middle distance.

Eventually it is over: only one more 'partner day' before he's at home, on holiday, playing with the kids. The black Alfa disappears in a haze of snow, kid's seat in the back, umpteen bottles of mineral water in the front, ready to go.

Enter the New Kimi.

He's the ultra-professional Ferrari driver still imbued with the velvet touch, whose Friday set-up very often determines the one that will be raced by Vettel, who doesn't complain other than on the radio during the race, when he likes to stir 'em up a bit, who works with Mark Arnall at just the right fitness level - nothing cosmetic - and who is clever enough to know that, if he plays the support role expected of him, and if the car is quick, he'll be winning races again.

Not because Ferrari or Vettel will let him win and not because, in this, his 17th year near the top, he is the fastest F1 driver on the planet.

He'll win because that is the way of things in this world, this world of keeping it straight and narrow; of loving the purity of racing and driving; of slightly older values that out-live DRS or fuel-saving or dash switches or MGU-Hs and outlandish run-off areas and reward instead of the guardrails of Monte Carlo; of staying quiet; of using the system around him; of not indulging the glamour; of not carving up other drivers because it's easy to do and no longer dangerous; of saying what he thinks (providing it doesn't hurt anyone); and, above all, of doing his duty as a Ferrari driver, as a dad and as a human being.

Of being a standalone, and completely unique, Kimi Raikkonen.