Feature: Iceman Raikkonen Clings On

A cartoon that appeared last week in the British press summed up Kimi Raikkonen's predicament.

It showed Ferrari's Michael Schumacher rowing towards the Japanese shoreline, and a record sixth Formula One championship, as the almost-submerged Finn clung to the stern by his fingertips.

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya stood furiously on the end of the jetty, having missed the boat entirely.

Raikkonen, 23, is the only man who can stop Schumacher from making history on Sunday but he needs a sporting miracle to get back in the boat and become Formula One's youngest World Champion.

The McLaren driver is nine points behind, meaning that he has to win the last race of the season and hope Schumacher fails to score. It is more than anyone could hope for but it does not detract from Raikkonen's extraordinary season.

The driver who in 2001 had people muttering that he did not deserve to be in Formula One, that he represented a potential danger to others, has come of age.

Barring a major upset, Raikkonen will not win the Championship this year but nobody doubts that his name will appear on it one day. He, and Spaniard Fernando Alonso, are very much the faces of the future.

Senna Eyes

From the moment Raikkonen arrived in Formula One, he and his managers made sure people noticed him.

"I looked in his eyes and I thought 'I've seen this look before. And I know where I saw that look before'," said former Sauber designer Sergio Rinland of the Finn's first test with the Swiss-based team. "And it gave me goosebumps when I remembered that look. It was (Ayrton) Senna."

Sauber were convinced but Raikkonen still had to push his case after the governing FIA expressed reservations about a driver who had competed in just 21 single-seater car races before his first Grand Prix in Melbourne.

But those who thought the British Formula Renault champion was too inexperienced had to eat their words when he scored a point on his debut, the 50th Formula One driver to do so.

Raikkonen's initial awkwardness in English and frequent retreat into barely audible platitudes prompted one commentator to say that he made compatriot Mika Hakkinen look like a stand-up comedian.

But McLaren liked what they saw and paid handsomely for Raikkonen to move to them as a replacement for compatriot Hakkinen in 2002.

In his first season at McLaren Raikkonen scored 24 points, 17 fewer than teammate David Coulthard, before becoming a revelation of 2003.

But he also put Formula One on notice that here was a talent to be reckoned with.

Great Battles

"We saw from Kimi last year that he is more than capable of racing wheel to wheel. He had some great battles with Montoya last year," said Coulthard after winning in Australia in March.

"I wouldn't expect him to give an inch on the track unless he absolutely had to. And that is great because when you are racing against someone like Michael you know they are not going to give you an inch."

This year Raikkonen has put Coulthard in the shade, despite qualifying mistakes, to take 83 points to the Scot's 45. Raikkonen has won his first race in Malaysia and started on pole at the Nurburgring and Indianapolis.

In Australia, he dealt with Michael Schumacher by slamming the door on the Ferrari Champion when he attempted to squeeze past.

He has taken nine podiums in 15 races, six of them as runner-up.

Team boss Ron Dennis has dubbed him 'The Iceman', a nickname he now carries with pride on his helmet. Raikkonen is just that - cool under pressure and chillingly unemotional, his raw feelings rarely on display.

"Kimi's hunger to win is remarkable and it reminds me of Mika because he came so close so often before getting his first win," said McLaren managing director Martin Whitmarsh this year.

Part of that hunger may be down to his upbringing. Raikkonen, who now dates a former Miss Scandinavia, comes from a working-class family in Espoo - not too different from Schumacher's background in Germany.

His father Matti drove heavy machinery and there was precious little money to spare for racing.

"My grandparents' house was in the same yard as ours, he built them both," Raikkonen said in an interview this year. "Ours was smaller.

"The toilet was outside and every year my father promised my mother we would build one inside but there was always something else to spend money on."

Now the money troubles, at least, are over.