Parenting & Family Quote by Kimi Raikkonen

Raikkonen’s charm has always been that he refuses the myth-making other athletes lean on, and this quote is him quietly puncturing the standard origin story. The usual motorsport narrative is destiny: a kid in karting diapers, a singular dream, a straight-line obsession. Raikkonen offers something messier and more human: he watched, sure, but he didn’t audition for greatness in his own head until he was basically an adult.

That delay is the point. “Everyone dreamt” sets up the cultural script - racing as childhood religion, ambition as proof of seriousness. His “while I” immediately swerves away from the expected confessional. By admitting he “only started thinking” at 18 or 19, he reframes elite success as less about lifelong fixation and more about timing, circumstance, and the moment when a hobby hardens into a vocation. It’s a subtle flex disguised as self-effacement: he didn’t need to spend a decade narrating his own legend to become world-class.

The last line does the real work: “Before then, I would change ideas from one second to the next.” It’s not just cute indecision; it’s a refusal to retrofit a coherent identity onto childhood. In a culture that demands athletes brand themselves early, Raikkonen presents drift as normal, even healthy. The subtext is anti-performative: he’s not selling motivation. He’s selling honesty - and in the hyper-curated world of celebrity sports, that reads like rebellion.