The headlines from Sunday's Portuguese Grand Prix may have been once again grabbed by Lewis Hamilton, after the Mercedes driver beat Michael Schumacher's all-time record, winning his 92nd Formula 1 race, but the first lap of the race belonged to someone much further down the grid.
Kimi Raikkonen is 41 now, and his glory days in Formula 1 are well and truly behind him. The Finnish driver was the 2007 World Champion and had a long career at the front of the grid with McLaren and Ferrari, amassing 21 wins.
Nowadays, he's making his living at the other end of the grid with the Alpha Romeo team, but for one lap yesterday he rolled back the years in spectacular fashion.
Starting at 16th on the grid, Raikkonen briefly lost a place before tearing through the field, and making it to 6th place by the time he came out of Turn 1 for the second time.
It was an extraordinary couple of minutes when viewed from his on board camera.
Masterclass 👨🏼🏫#PortugueseGP @F1 pic.twitter.com/2s7JUjGW3R
— Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN (@alfaromeoorlen) October 25, 2020
It was a drive that reminded us of playing old Formula 1 Playstation games on Amateur, having not bothered with qualifying. As a real life drive, it was as daring and as brilliant as it gets. His team's Twitter account said it best, a masterclass!
Unfortunately for Alpha Romeo and for Kimi Raikkonen, the good start wasn't good enough to pick up some points. The Finn was passed late in the race for 10th place, and ended up in 11th, just one point outside the scoring.
Quiz: Can You Name The Formula 1 Teams Of The 1990s
