17 is the unlucky number in Italy; it is also the amount of race wins Raikkonen's been stuck on since April.
Recently, people have been questioning Kimi's motivation, saying that he's lacking it. It's easy to understand why, his last race win was nearly four months ago.
The German Grand Prix, both at Hockenheim and the Nurburgring, has never been kind to Kimi. He has more DNF's to his name than race finishes, as well as crashing at Hockenheim at the same corner—twice.
It's not been a great weekend for the Finn. He's had to contend with Renault's, Toyota's, BMW's and even his own car. His F2008 has been under-steering on the way into the corners, then over-steering on the way out.
He just has not been able to find the right set-up, and this weekend, it was not superior to the mid-pack cars.
His luck didn't really improve come race day either. He lost a place on the opening lap to Robert Kubica, and then didn't seem to be catching up to Trulli when he was wedged between Alonso and the Toyota. And then he went into the pits, queuing up behind Felipe Massa, and upon coming out he was down to 12th.
But when he came out in 12th, something happened. Kimi seemed filled with that vitality from his old McLaren days, to get the points he needed for his Championship campaign.
After pulling some great overtaking moves on Nico Rosberg, two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, Bright spark Vettel, Jarno Trulli and Rising Star Robert Kubica, Kimi was now back in the points.
Yes, he could have done better than sixth, but I hope today pushed the Kimi reset button, that we'll see more of that deserving young racer from Espoo, and he can get that elusive 18th win.
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