The former Top Gear producer shared memories of Kimi.

      Andy Wilman is a legendary figure, and such a grand epithet does not seem an exaggeration, for it was Wilman together with Jeremy Clarkson who ran the car show Top Gear during the best years of that TV project. Then, with the same merry trio Clarkson – Richard Hammond – James May, he created the much-talked-about Grand Tour, and now, together with Jeremy, has been filming more than one season of the hugely popular Clarkson's Farm.

      Wilman himself never appeared on camera, although his name was mentioned regularly, but now he took part in the Midweek F1 podcast and among other things shared memories of how he once had to deal with Kimi Räikkönen, who had just returned to Formula 1 after a two-year break with the Lotus F1 Team.

      One day the Finn was invited to Top Gear, and his task included driving the circuit in a Suzuki Liana and showing what he could do even behind the wheel of a budget production sedan.

      The weather was unlucky — it was a rainy day, and Kimi wasn't really in the mood to push on a wet track. After several takes he said he'd had enough and went back to his motorhome.

      Andy Wilman didn't like the footage and asked Kimi to return to the track and continue. One of his arguments was that the weather was gradually improving.

      “You can't say Kimi was being unfriendly, but he simply didn't like that the track was soaked with rain,” Wilman recalled. “But the weather was getting better, and I went to tell him the track was starting to dry.

      Kimi was sitting there completely relaxed and slouched in his seat, and I said to him, ‘You know, it's gotten a little drier out there. I can't call your lap time brilliant, but we know you can go faster.’

      ‘No, I can't,’ was Räikkönen's reply.

      I didn't give up and kept trying to persuade Kimi to come back: ‘Kimi, if you look out the window you'll see the track is really drying, for sure!’

      Kimi reluctantly lifted himself up, looked out the window and said flatly, ‘No, it's not drying.’

      And at that moment the producer lost his composure; he flew off the handle and gave Kimi a severe dressing-down, telling him everything he thought of him. Wilman immediately regretted his words, but, oddly enough, they worked: Kimi agreed to do a few more laps and did manage to improve his time a little.

      Although the sun had come out from behind the clouds, the track was still wet, and in those conditions Kimi could only manage the 12th best time among all the celebrity guests on the show, but his mood was noticeably lighter.

      By the way, in November Wilman's memoir about his work on Top Gear and the Grand Tour was published, the title of which includes the words “Twenty Years of Magic and Madness.” They say the book is very interesting, funny and brilliantly written, so many car fanatics gave it to each other for Christmas.