Quote Originally Posted by Prisoner Monkeys
I can understand that a driver might speak in anger sometimes and be unintentionally rude - for all we know, the call came in when Raikkonen was preoccupied with something else and didn't need the intrusion - but it's not like this is an isolated incident. Raikkonen just strikes me as a singularly unlikeable person, and I don't understand why people find his standoffish and brusque personality to be to endearing. It's like my students proudly announcing that they are cynics; cynicism is nothing to be proud of.
If you walked around the Formula 1 paddock with a lamp, how long would it be before its light fell on an honest man?
I think what people like in Kimi is the lack of a cultivated PR facade. He says what he wants to say; not what people want to hear, nor what media gurus have trained him to say. Most other drivers sound the same in interviews because they have all been schooled from the same PR textbook. Kimi has not read it.

I suspect there may be a cultural element to it too. The Finns are known for not wasting words. What you see as rudeness, they might see simply as conciseness. Similar to how Germans sometimes come across as brusque or rude if they're not accustomed to Anglophone culture: it's not rudeness, just that they use language differently.