It’s a horrible feeling. You’re sitting quietly at the traffic lights, minding your own business, when you hear that horrible screaming sound.

You glance in the mirror in time to see a multicoloured late '70s buzzbox hurtling at you in a cloud of blue smoke billowing from its tortured tyres - tyres that probably cost one tenth of the amount spent on the stereo that is belting out ear-splitting “doof-doof” music. You close your eyes, brace yourself and wait for the bang.

Kimi Raikkonen, however, is unlikely to have experienced this horrifying situation – and certainly never while sitting in the cockpit of a Formula One car. Until the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix, that is.

'A lesser man than Kimi Raikkonen would have resorted to violence – or at the very least a healthy dose of tradesman’s language'


Out on the roads, the driver of the offending car is likely to be a pimply teen, with more bits of metal embedded in its face than active brain cells between its ears. It was probably texting its mates while changing the CD.

In Kimi’s case, the driver was British F1 wunderkind Lewis Hamilton, who was absolutely focused on the job at hand.

It was completely unexpected. The leading cars had peeled off to pit under a safety car and, such is the speed of modern F1 pit crews and the layout of the Canadian track, were ready to hit the track again before the safety car had passed the pit lane.

Under F1 rules, cars are held at the pit exit until it is safe to re-enter the racetrack using the universally recognised red traffic light. Raikkonen and BMW-Sauber driver Robert Kubica saw the light and stopped.

Hamilton did not and slammed into the back of the unsuspecting Raikkonen, ending both drivers’ race. Williams-Toyota driver Nico Rosberg was similarly asleep at the wheel and joined the carnage.

Interestingly, footage of the crash shows Hamilton initially heading for Kubica’s car but veering off at the last second to collect Kimi.

While there is no suggestion that the collision was deliberate, Hamilton could equally have hit Kubica, as he and Raikkonen were side-by-side. It’s an unfortunate coincidence that Hamilton took out his greatest rival for the championship. Probably.

For his part, Raikkonen deserves to be considered for sainthood. After being hit, he calmly moved his car to a safe spot, got out and walked back to the pits. Along the way, he gently patted Hamilton on the shoulder and pointed to the traffic lights.

A lesser man would have resorted to violence – or at the very least, a healthy dose of tradesman’s language.

It was a pit incident in the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix that cost Hamilton the championship title in his rookie year. This latest incident almost certainly cost him 10 points for this year’s championship as well as 10 grid places for the upcoming French Grand Prix.

All other things being equal, it will be the driver who makes the least mistakes who ends up world champion.

Hamilton can only hope that this mistake will not be the one to bite him again.