10 years on from Kimi Raikkonen’s 19th victory in Formula 1, the Finnish driver’s car is now completely unrecognisable, with it having been given a drastic repaint.
The Finnish legend famously won the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix which back then wasn’t the season finale, instead it was the 18th round of a 20-round calendar.
2012 was, of course, Raikkonen’s returning campaign to F1 after leaving the sport at the end of the 2009 season, following his third season at Ferrari.
Raikkonen spent his time away from F1 mostly in the World Rally Championship, before returning to F1 with Lotus in 2012.
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The 2007 World Champion claimed seven podiums in his returning season, including, his victory at the Yas Marina Circuit.
He went on to claim one more win for Lotus at the 2013 season-opener, which just so happened to be the Australian Grand Prix.
Raikkonen went on to return to Ferrari in 2014, before moving to Alfa Romeo in 2019 where he remained for three seasons before retiring.
It’s his winning Lotus from 2012, though, which has appeared on Reddit this week, with it having been spotted on-track at Circuit Paul Ricard, the former host of the French Grand Prix.
The French GP was axed from the calendar at the end of 2022; however, Alpine continue to use the circuit for testing.
The Enstone-based team also run an F1 car as part of the Winfield Racing School, which allows anybody to purchase a driving experience package.
Supposedly, Alpine run Raikkonen’s winning car from Abu Dhabi, with the car having, of course, been repainted after the Renault Group re-purchased the team at the end of 2015.
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YouTube channel Driver61 reportedly were the ones who revealed that it was Raikkonen’s car that gets used, as somebody shared on Reddit.
“Basically what the title says,” commented the Reddit user.
“YouTube channel Driver61 released video today where he put one of his subscribers to old F1 car after some F4 testing. According to Driver61 this is the car that Kimmi drove to win in 2012 Abu Dhabi GP. Repainting some of the old cars is somewhat usual as we saw Hamilton’s McLaren in papaya last year.”