Raikkonen grew up in Espoo and began competitive karting aged ten, winning several national titles before his first race outside Finland in Monaco aged fifteen — a race where his steering wheel broke but he continued regardless, eventually finishing third after lifting his kart back onto the track from the wrong side of a safety fence. By age twenty he had won the 1999 British Formula Renault winter series and seven of ten rounds in the 2000 Formula Renault UK Championship, a 57 per cent win rate across the two series combined.
Peter Sauber arranged a test for Raikkonen at Mugello in September 2000, keeping him under the internal codename "Eskimo." Raikkonen lapped half a second faster than regular driver Pedro Diniz on the test's second day. Sauber signed him for the 2001 season despite some officials — including FIA president Max Mosley — expressing concern about granting a Super Licence to a driver with only 23 car races to his credit.
Raikkonen scored a championship point on his debut at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix, reportedly having slept in the garage thirty minutes before the race. He achieved nine points from four points-scoring finishes in his rookie season. Ron Dennis signed him for McLaren in 2002, a decision heavily influenced by double world champion Mika Hakkinen, who told Dennis "If you wanna win, get the Finn." Raikkonen immediately scored a podium on his McLaren debut in Australia.
His maiden victory came at the 2003 Malaysian Grand Prix from seventh on the grid. Throughout 2003 he ran Schumacher extremely close, losing the championship by only two points after a string of retirements while leading and other misfortunes. His 2004 campaign was blighted by McLaren MP4-19 unreliability; he achieved only one victory in Belgium. The 2005 season saw him win seven Grands Prix as the closest challenger to Renault's Fernando Alonso, losing the championship to the Spaniard despite matching and often exceeding his pace — mechanical failures while leading cost him multiple victories.
After a winless 2006 season at McLaren, Raikkonen moved to Ferrari as Schumacher's successor. He took pole at the very first race in Australia, won it, and became the first driver since Nigel Mansell in 1989 to win his first Grand Prix with Ferrari. The 2007 championship battle resolved at the final race in Brazil, where Raikkonen needed to win and his two main rivals — Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso — needed to falter. Hamilton dropped from the championship lead to seventh in the race, Alonso finished third, and Raikkonen crossed the line first to claim the title by a single point from both of them, six victories giving him the edge in count-back. As of the end of the 2025 season, Raikkonen's 2007 title remains the most recent World Drivers' Championship win for a Scuderia Ferrari driver.
He finished third in 2008 and won the Belgian Grand Prix in 2009 before Ferrari released him to make room for Alonso. Rather than negotiate with other F1 teams, Raikkonen pursued a two-year campaign in the World Rally Championship with Citroen in 2010 and under the ICE 1 Racing banner in 2011, finishing tenth overall in both seasons and taking a stage win at the Rallye Deutschland.
Raikkonen returned to Formula One with Lotus for 2012 and 2013, winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2012 and the Australian Grand Prix in 2013 — Lotus's only victories in that period. He rejoined Ferrari in 2014 alongside Alonso, then Vettel from 2015 to 2018. His final race win came at the 2018 United States Grand Prix, a record 114 races after his previous victory, completing one of the longest gaps between wins in championship history. He moved to Alfa Romeo for 2019, remaining with the team through 2021 before retiring from Formula One aged 42.
Raikkonen was renowned for his raw speed, particularly in qualifying, and his ability to operate a car at its absolute limit on a single lap. His terse, direct communication style carried into his technical relationship with engineers — he was known for clear, precise feedback and a preference for understeer-neutral balance. His performance in adverse conditions was particularly noted, including a famous 2005 Japanese Grand Prix where he started 17th and passed championship rival Fisichella on the final lap to win.
After retirement from Formula One, Raikkonen made one-off appearances in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2022 and 2023, and became team principal of Kawasaki in the Motocross World Championship from 2022 onwards.
Raikkonen's personality made him a fan favourite throughout his career — reserved in interviews to a legendary degree, refreshingly direct with the press, and able to deliver performances of extraordinary quality on track. His four-word radio message "Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing" at the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix encapsulated both his personality and his racecraft, and became one of the most repeated lines in modern Formula One. He remains one of very few champions to have left Formula One, competed seriously in rally at the World Championship level, and then returned to win further Grands Prix.