Finnish Racing Drivers Past, Present & Future

This weekend sees the environmental disaster that is Formula One arrive in Singapore where the air quality is already so bad no one will notice. Singapore is a night time street circuit and it’s likely to produce some great racing, but lets not forget that F1 is the summit of a big mountain and Raikkonen and Bottas aren’t the only Finnish racing drivers to keep an eye on.

From the fuss being made you’d assume that the air in Singapore was something you could slice and toast, the organizers forced to admit that “It is currently not possible to reliably predict what the pollution level might be as it changes hour to hour” after the air was deemed “very unhealthy” on Monday and still “unhealthy” on Tuesday. This is nothing new, the annual haze over the place is well known, but F1 fans complaining about it is a bit gauche.

Is Finnish F1 Future Foggy?

• Youngster Niko Kari takes SMP F4 win
• Hakkinen’s F3 team will now test him
• Bottas & Raikkonen to race in the smog

Formula One is already unhealthy. Dozens of rich posh-boys racing over-powered, fume billowing, gas guzzling, over-engineered go-karts around the place is hardly environmentally friendly, and indeed driving around at excessive speeds is inherently unsafe however much Bernie Ecclestone and his cabal of capitalist crazies try and ruin the sport with added safety measures. Hit a barrier at 200mph and frankly the smell of the air will be the least of your worries.

Organizers have promised masks for people attending the event, at cost price no less, however one wonders which will cause them more respiratory problems, the smog, the fuel and rubber burnt by F1 or the amount of carbon monoxide they’ll be subjected to in the traffic jams prior to the event as they try to find somewhere to park. Worse still it might not even be a good race with Finnish racing drivers Raikkonen and Bottas gambling news of the smog might put Lewis Hamilton off his stroke.

Both Finnish Racing Drivers in F1 Have Something To Prove Now

It is actually the Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel that holds the lap record around this circuit, a rather nippy 1:48:574, but that might well be in danger as the Mercedes team set up for a 61 lap race of just over 308Km. Can Rosberg or Hamilton take that from him? The German will hope not, and with the Finnish racing drivers both out to prove they should be driving for Ferrari for various reasons despite Raikkonen’s new contract, he’ll have more than Mercedes to keep an eye on.

Mercedes itself will be keeping an eye on the Finnish racing drivers, especially Raikkonen whose luck is bound to change sometime. After a disaster in Italy (his car getting off the line as convincingly as 2016 US election predictions that say Trump will be President) Raikkonen will be gagging for a better result and is likely to be quite aggressive about it, and as for Valtteri Bottas, he’s got more than a small point to prove all round.

Those that like to bet on sports in Finland will already be all too well aware of the speculation about Bottas replacing Raikkonen that went on for ages and came to absolutely zero, and thus will not be too surprised when Vallteri valiantly attempts to shove what he’ll almost certainly see as Ferrari’s error down their throat. If the two Finnish racing drivers come up against each other on the track this weekend, you can expect one heck of a duel.

Finnish Racing Drivers Pass On Experience And Opportunities

F1 veteran Mika Hakkinen popped up to say that Bottas’ potential has yet to be properly recognized, but that has more to do with Mika being part of Valtteri’s management team than his years of experience behind the wheel of a racing car. Although, that said, it is nice to see Finnish racing drivers sticking together. Which they do right down the sport. Motor racing doesn’t begin and end with F1 as those in the lower division races will tell you, but there is a trickle-down system to it.

Take the 15 year old Niko Kari who has just won the SMP Formula 4 championship, perhaps the youngest of the successful Finnish racing drivers. There’s every chance he will now move up to Formula 3 in 2016, quite possibly to a team that was co-founded by Kimi Raikkonen. Double R chief Anthony Hieatt has already confirmed they’d give Niko a test run, and with their strong ties to Finland there’s a good chance this is where Kari starts to climb the ladder.

Reaching the top of motorsport has been something Finnish racing drivers have always been very good at, and it is because of this passing on of support down the generations that they’ll continue to feature in the top tiers for years to come. It might be a bit early to start betting on Kari, of course, but with ComeOn! Sportsbook offering 15.00 on Raikkonen this weekend, I know a better wager you could place, if you ignore silly Finnish gambling laws, albeit one best placed each way.