How Kimi Raikkonen reacted to McLaren bosses fawning over Lewis Hamilton before his F1 debut

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Lewis Hamilton produced statistically the greatest GP2 season ever in 2006. Excitement grew inside the McLaren team, much to the dismay of incumbent drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya.

Hamilton beats Charles Leclerc in the overall leaderboard for percentage of available points scored in a GP2/F2 season. He won five out of 21 races and scored 14 podiums as he beat Nelson Piquet Jr to the championship.

McLaren had signed Hamilton to their driver academy in the late 1990s, and his special 2006 campaign confirmed to Ron Dennis that he was ready for one of the most coveted seats in Formula 1.

Dennis had already signed the then-world champion Fernando Alonso for 2007, while Raikkonen was successfully courted by Ferrari. Meanwhile, Juan Pablo Montoya left midway through the season after announcing his intention to race in NASCAR, with Pedro de la Rosa standing in.

Kimi Raikkonen was clearly irritated by McLaren screening Lewis Hamilton’s GP2 races

Raikkonen had joined McLaren in 2002 after compatriot Mika Hakkinen walked away. Montoya arrived three years later as a replacement for David Coulthard.

While neither driver won a championship at Woking, they made 113 appearances for the team combined, delivering 12 victories and 43 podiums. But the excitement around Hamilton swept through the team.

As Ted Kravitz recalls in his book, F1 Insider: Notes from the Pit Lane, Hamilton made GP2 relevant, with his races becoming ‘essential viewing’ in the paddock. With Dennis and Mercedes’ Norbert Haug transfixed, the ‘irritation’ of Raikkonen and Montoya was palpable.

Kravitz writes: “As that season went on and Lewis started winning consistently, there was a sense of excitement whenever he was on the track, so much so that the GP2 races, often ignored in the F1 paddock, started to become essential viewing in the team motorhomes, especially at McLaren.

“Ron Dennis and Mercedes motorsport chief Norbert Haug would sit downstairs in one of the glass-walled offices of their motorhome watching the races enthusiastically, to the obvious irritation of the McLaren F1 drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya as they would pass behind to get to their driver rooms.”

What happened to Lewis Hamilton’s GP2 teammate?

Perhaps Hamilton’s most gripping race came in Turkey. A spin on the opening lap sent him tumbling down to 17th place, but he remarkably fought his way back to second.

Bernie Ecclestone was convinced Hamilton was ‘cheating’, suggesting that he had an artificial car advantage. But this was nothing more than an emerging talent announcing himself as a future F1 champion – an objective he achieved within two years.

That Istanbul comeback was crucial to his GP2 title bid, and he sealed the title in the Monza finale. Piquet finished 12 points behind, with Hamilton’s teammate Alexandre Premat third.

Despite his strong showing, Premat never started an F1 race, perhaps unfortunate that his rise coincided with that of Hamilton. He took part in a couple of practice sessions, but that was all his career at the highest level amounted to.