The Formula 1 race weekend in Spielberg saw the Red Bull team as the focus for many Dutch F1 fans, for obvious reasons.

Red Bull’s home race in Austria attracted thousands of Max Verstappen fans from the Netherlands, who even had their own ‘oranje’ grandstand laid on by Red Bull.

With the fans came a large contingent of Dutch reporters, keen to interview the drivers, and in particular Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.

Ziggo Sport F1’s reporter Jack Plooji, cornered Raikkonen with the intent to break the ‘iceman’s fabled ability to remain impassive during an interview post race.

When asked what is so difficult at the Formula 1 circuit in Styria, the Finn replies with typical cold air. The layout looks easy, but it is not.

The gaps are still narrower due to the short lap times, and every mistake makes even harder.

In short: Boring statements as they could have come from any PR-caught driver in the world, and very typical of Kimi’s strangely applauded interview style.

Kimi, whose fans adore inexplicably, has a persona reserved for the race weekend, and that is one of boring, monosyllabic responses to the usual crap offered as questions by ‘reporters’. This is classed as funny to many.

However, reporter Jack Plooji tested Raikkonen straight away by releasing an F bomb at the beginning of the interview.

“Come on, you are Kimi fucking Raikkonen,” blurts the Dutchman.

“Swearing on TV?” replies Raikkonen with a smile, no doubt receiving flashbacks of podiums in Abu Dhabi 2012 when Vettel and Raikkonen famously swore live on air during their podium interviews with David Coulthard.

“Yes, you’re welcome to swear, you can do that on Dutch television, you know that, you lived with us,” says the reporter.

“I have many memories of it,”

Raikkonen grins meaningfully. “Where did I live again? Vlaardingen, was not it cool? I was young, I was all alone.”

Haha 😂 Prachtig gesprek tussen Kimi en @jackontracks, die herinneringen ophalen uit Raikkonen's tijd in Nederland!#Raikkonen #F1 #ziggosportf1 pic.twitter.com/0BV3X3Bo9R

— Ziggo Sport F1 (@ZiggoSportF1) June 29, 2018

During the Finn’s karting career, Raikkonen had driven for Dutchman Peter de Bruijn’s team and had lived in a caravan at that time, not untypical for Holland.

Interviewer Plooji obiously remembers this era himself – as a young, budding motorsport journalist at the time. “I know,” says the reporter, “because I had to wake you up in your caravan back then.”

“It was a fun time, I even had to fix the cars and screw them. That was another time,” replies Raikkonen with an uncharacteristic smile on his face.

Clearly swearing on live national TV is probably the only thing that’ll crack the ‘Iceman’ facade these days.

Have you any funny Kimi memories you can recall? Share them below in the comments.