Kimi Raikkonen breaks Fernando Alonso Formula 1 distance record at the Spanish Grand Prix

Spanish Grand Prix

Raikkonen breaks Alonso Formula 1 distance record at the Spanish Grand Prix

Raikkonen broke the record on lap 37 as he picked up his best result of the season

Ewan Gale

Monday 17 August 2020 18:07

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Kimi Raikkonen has endured a tough start to the 2020 season but on lap 37 of the Spanish Grand Prix the Finn claimed a record even Lewis Hamilton will struggle to break.

The 2007 world champion currently sits 18th in the drivers' standings, ahead of only Romain Grosjean and Williams drivers George Russell and Nicholas Latifi, in what is his worst ever start to a Formula 1 campaign.

But on lap 37 of Sunday's race at the Circuit de Barcelona, Raikkonen became the driver to have completed the most racing distance in the history of the sport.

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The record was previously held by two time champion Fernando Alonso and stood at 53,099 miles - a distance longer than racing around the equator, twice.

Raikkonen began his career at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix with Sauber, spending one season with the team before moving to McLaren.

His first victory came in the 2003 Malaysian Grand Prix and the Finn's current win total stands at 21. Ranked by win totals, Raikonen boasts the 15th best record of all, sitting behind 1996 champion Damon Hill's 22, and ahead of countryman Mika Hakkinen's 20.

Raikkonen moved to Ferrari in 2007 and won the title at the first attempt, defeating Alonso and then-rookie Lewis Hamilton by a single point.

He stepped away from the sport in 2010 but returned with Lotus in 2012, before embarking on a second five-year stint with Ferrari between 2014 and 2018.

That the Spanish Grand Prix was the first time Raikkonen had escaped Q1 in 2020 only serves to highlight the struggles he has endured in this strangest of campaigns.

After taking the mileage record and scoring a season best 14th position finish, he said: "I was hoping for a bit better

"At the end, the car was good on the soft but maybe we should have run a second set of softs and seen if that would have helped. We keep trying and generally, speed-wise, we have been a bit better this weekend so we need to keep improving in the same direction and see what we can do in the next race.

"In the end, it kind of felt like I was expecting but the mediums were surprisingly difficult so maybe the conditions just suited the soft tyres better today."

Before you go...

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Hamilton in his "highest form" during "perfect" Spanish Grand Prix