So last night I watched a really interesting interview with Mark Arnall (Kimi’s Personal Trainer) and he had some interesting things to say....
-At the start of his career when he worked for Mika, he lived in his spare bedroom with Mika’s pet tortoise, Carolina.
-Kimi is very specific about his driving stuff. He has a favourite pair of boots and gloves that, on a race weekend, Mark must carry with him at all times.
-He also mentioned in another interview that if there is a scratch or finger smudge on his [race] car windscreen, Kimi cannot drive the car until they replace it completely.
-Mark treats his drivers like princes. Mark believes it’s his priority to keep track of flight details, know hotel bookings, the PR schedule, rental cars, dietary arrangements etc. And all Kimi has to do is text him, “When do we have to leave?”
-Mika once got fed up of saying “Yes” to stupid questions and asked Mark for advice on what to say. Mark told him to say “Does a bear shit in the woods?” “Is the pope a catholic?” The next time Mika was asked a stupid question he said, “Does the pope shit in the woods?” and everyone was laughing so he gave Mark a thumbs up!
-Kimi is very motivated and dedicated to his training. When he started to play badminton with Mark he watched Mark play his friends first to gauge what kind of player Mark was. Mark beat Kimi easy, so in between their sessions Kimi practiced until he was able to beat Mark.
- Kimi is so confident in his badminton game, that once when he was playing Seb, he bet him that he could have his Ferrari Enzo if Seb won. (He didn’t)
-Kimi can no longer do as much weights training as he used to because Mark says Kimi bulks up very quickly and the new F1 regs on lower driver weight means Kimi can’t afford to put on the muscule. (Which explains alot b/c Kimi isn’t as muscly as he used to be.)
-Kimi trains very hard and will row on the rowing machine until he’s nearly sick. (And in fact, once he did vomit.)
-Kimi is nothing like the cold & unfeeling person we see on the track and away from the track he does get angry at his bad results but is also a completely different nice guy. (But then, we already knew that didn’t we?)
-Most importantly, Mark loves his job and the travelling. When Kimi was out of F1 for 2 years, Mark said he missed the people in the paddock lots.
