Having returned to the sport with Lotus, Raikkonen, appearing on the hit British TV show, was the ‘Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car’. Only, his laps were not up to scratch, and Wilman “lost it” with Raikkonen in a hilarious stand-off as they tried to get him back out on the track.
Andy Wilman recalls ‘the day I told Kimi Raikkonen off’
Raikkonen became one of Formula 1’s most popular personalities. Not only because of his immense talents, but arguably more due to his no-nonsense persona.
He was ‘The Iceman’ for a reason, a laid back character who at any given moment, could deliver an outburst to leave us in stitches.
Wilman got the Raikkonen experience when they had him lap in Top Gear’s ‘Reasonably-Priced Car’, a Suzuki Liana. It resulted in Wilman losing his cool.
“Raikkonen came on the show,” Wilman began on the Midweek F1 podcast. “So everyone is doing their lap. His was a wet day. And we were like, ‘Oh, he’s not going to do it’. He’s like, ‘Okay’. But he’ll give it some, because it’s Kimi.
“It was when he came back with Lotus. And we were all like, ‘Oh, we are not worthy. You’re here. You’re here’.
“I went down to see the guy with the timer, Nick Dalton, had the watch out. I was like, ‘How’s he doing? How’s he doing?’ He went, ‘Not great’.
“So he goes into his motorhome, and he’s like, ‘I’ve done enough laps now’. He wasn’t unfriendly, but he’s just like, ‘It’s a rainy day’.
“I go into the motorhome after him. He’s in the like, La-Z-Boy chair, and it’s warm, and he’s fully sort of stretched out, like Joey from Friends.
“I went, ‘Kimi, you know, it’s drying out now. I can’t tell you your time, but it wasn’t brilliant. We know you could go faster.’ And he went, ‘No, I can’t’. And we were like, ‘No, Kimi, it really is dry now’, and I said, ‘If you look out of the window, you’ll see it’s definitely getting drier’.
“And he, with hugely bad grace, upped himself to the window, and he went, ‘No, it isn’t’.
“I lost it with him a bit, and bollocked him, like, ‘There’s so many people here waiting to see you make a comeback, and that’ll be on you if you don’t do something!’
“Then I thought, ‘What have I done?’
“And then he got out and he went and did a couple more laps and went a bit faster. But that was the day I told Kimi off.”
Interestingly, Wilman revealed that it was never the original plan to have actual racing drivers get behind the wheel of the Reasonably-Priced Car.
Wilman recalled how a scheduled celebrity guest, Davina McCall, rang in unable to make the show after losing her voice.
From there, an emergency call to 1996 World Champion Damon Hill was made, and the idea was born.
A who’s who of F1 icons went on to appear on the show. Hill and Raikkonen were joined by the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, Nigel Mansell, Jenson Button and Mark Webber in putting the Liana through its paces.
“So it’s eight o’clock in the morning. The guest is going to be three o’clock, when they would come on,” said Wilman. “They’ve got to get there about 12 to be taught how to do the laps by ‘The Stig’, sit around while we wait for all their lap to be edited.
“So 12 o’clock, and it’s eight, and we’re in Dunsfold, down in Surrey, so you can’t just grab a guest from London. So our only option was Damon Hill lives around the corner.
“But we’d had this sort of rule that we’d established, when the show was getting a broader audience, so we’re like, we won’t have motorsport guests on, because A, we just think they’ll be boring, and they’ll switch everybody off. And B, obviously, if they go on the lap board, they’ll go to the top. And then that’s game over with that.”
Alas, Wilman conceded that they “haven’t got a choice” at this moment.
“So we ring Damon,” he continued. “He says, yes. He says he’ll get down there.”
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It proved quite the happy accident. The thunderous audience reception for Hill led to a hilarious quip from Richard Hammond, one of three presenters at the time alongside Jeremy Clarkson and James May.
“Then we make a lap board up, an emergency Formula 1 lap board, star-in-a-car lap board, because we thought, ‘Right, we’ll put them on separately’. Still put them in the Suzuki Liana,” Wilman continued.
“He [Hill] comes down, and I’ll never forget [Richard] Hammond… Jeremy, was going ‘Uhh, as soon as I say his name in the studio, they’ll be like, muted applause, because this motorsport thing is still a problem’.
“So he goes, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Damon Hill’, and then, like, the roof comes off with the applause, it’s so massive. So Damon’s walking through the crowd. The crowd’s going bat sh*t. And Richard Hammond turned to me at the side, he goes, ‘At times, we are thick!’
“And then, that was it. It was established. So then we start to get them on. Most of the big names came on it. So we had [Mark] Webber, [Sebastian] Vettel. Nigel [Mansell], he came down.
“Lewis came down twice.”
