“Top Gear” producer recalls the day he “bollocked” Kimi Raikkonen: “I kinda lost it with him”

“Top Gear” producer recalls the day he “bollocked” Kimi Raikkonen: “I kinda lost it with him”

 

 

 

Former Top Gear producer Andy Wilman has never been shy about telling stories from the show’s gloriously chaotic heyday, but one of his favourites remains the day he completely lost his patience with one of Formula 1’s most famously unflappable stars: Kimi Räikkönen.

Räikkönen, the 2007 world champion and patron saint of monosyllabic interviews, appeared on Top Gear during his Ferrari years, when the show was at its cultural peak and drivers treated a lap of the Dunsfold Aerodrome track almost as seriously as a qualifying session. Almost. Kimi, it turned out, was operating on an entirely different wavelength.

Recalling the incident years later, Wilman admitted that he “bollocked” Räikkönen after what should have been a straightforward filming day descended into quiet, ice-cold chaos. “I kinda lost it with him,” Wilman said, still sounding faintly amazed that the moment had even happened.

The issue wasn’t speed. Räikkönen was, predictably, very fast. The problem was everything around it. Call times, briefings, reshoots, basic TV logistics—none of it seemed to register. Räikkönen arrived when he arrived, did exactly what he felt like doing, and communicated only when absolutely necessary. To him, Top Gear was clearly a mild inconvenience wedged between more important things, like existing.

For Wilman, who was juggling a tight production schedule, crew expectations, and the pressure of delivering a polished segment, Kimi’s total indifference eventually tipped him over the edge. The producer confronted the driver, delivering a rare dressing-down that would have rattled almost anyone else.

Almost.

Räikkönen’s response was pure Kimi: minimal reaction, no visible remorse, and certainly no apology. He didn’t argue. He didn’t escalate. He simply absorbed the bollocking and carried on exactly as before, as if Wilman had just commented on the weather. In hindsight, that may have been the most infuriating part.

Yet, with the benefit of distance, Wilman now tells the story with affection rather than frustration. What once felt like unprofessionalism has become, in retrospect, a perfect encapsulation of Räikkönen’s legend. This is, after all, the man who told his engineer he was missing a presentation because he was “having a shit,” and later explained his absence from the F1 paddock with the immortal line: “I was having a poo.”

Kimi didn’t do media training in the conventional sense. He endured it. And Top Gear, despite its petrolhead DNA, was still a television show—something that existed firmly outside his priorities.

In the end, the segment aired, the lap was quick, and the world got exactly what it expected from a Räikkönen appearance: speed, silence, and zero concern for entertainment value. Wilman got a great story out of it, too—a reminder that even at Top Gear’s peak, there were some stars who simply couldn’t be produced.

And Kimi Räikkönen was never going to be one of them.