KIMI RAIKKONEN’S son is beginning to follow in the footsteps of his dad after tasting success on track.

Robin Raikkonen is set to compete in his first international kart racing competition.

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He qualified for the race by winning the Swiss National Championship this year.

Robin, 9, is ready to take on the event at Circuito Internazionale Napoli, Italy, with an Instagram account in his name writing: “Ready for the Grand Finals!”

The youngster picked up a trophy and a huge ticket confirming his place in the Grand Finals, with his race set to take place this week.

Raikkonen, 44, is happy with his son’s progress and is pleased he is having fun behind the wheel.

He said of Robin’s progress: “Ah, he’s enjoying.

“Everything is going nicely. We’ll see. If something comes or not, who knows? But he’s having fun – that’s the main thing.”

Raikkonen has settled into retirement since retiring at the end of the 2021 season and he has worked as a mechanic for Robin.

The Finn competed in 349 F1 races between 2001-09 and 2012-21, winning 21, and raced for the likes of Ferrari, McLaren and Sauber.

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He won the 2007 Championship – the last Ferrari driver to do so, beating Lewis Hamilton to the title by just a point.

Hamilton then got the better of Raikkonen the following year as he won his maiden F1 Championship.

F1 reporter Isabelle Barker’s prediction

I EXPECT Max Verstappen to go all guns blazing over the next six-rounds. I also think his experience and aggression could give him the edge.

It seems too little too late for Norris showing consistency, despite that dominant win in Singapore last time out.

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You can’t help think what could have been had he sorted out his first-lap issues sooner.

Norris needs to prove he has the mental fortitude, because we all know he’s got the speed, the team and the fastest car.

Verstappen has endured an eight-race winless streak, but he has still managed to score points, with three second-places during that time.

So I think the Dutchman will lift his fourth world-title this season, by the skin of his teeth. 

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In the margin of the US Grand Prix weekend Red Bull’s Helmut Marko caught flak for pointing out what he called Lando Norris’ “mental weaknesses” as he weighed up the title chances of the McLaren driver against those of Max Verstappen in a recent interview.

“We know Norris has some mental weaknesses. I’ve read about some of the rituals he needs to do to perform well on race day,” Marko said, referring to Norris’ admission of feeling nervous and anxious on race weekends, with the pressure making him struggle to eat or drink before a race.

Marko was countered by McLaren CEO Zak Brown and team boss Andrea Stella, who said it was “like you destroy in a comment the work of 20 years. Max was addressed for swearing. For me, this is much more severe in terms of what a member of the F1 community has said rather than one bad word in the wrong place.”

While it is not Marko’s first comment that some would categorise as jurassic, it is debatable whether or not the Austrian was engaging in mind games or just being the straight shooter that he is. That attribute has made the 81-year-old a popular sounding board for F1’s media corps. Ask Marko a question and you get an honest answer, with little regard of how it is received or whether it is adhering to PR lines.

Often that honesty can be refreshing, but by dismissing Norris’ pre-race experiences as mentally weak, Marko has unknowingly still crossed a red line according to experts working in the field. Simon Fitchett, a mental coach and psychotherapist who was a former trainer in F1 for the likes of Sergio Perez, David Coulthard, Jerome D’Ambrosio, thought Marko’s comments were potentially harmful. Not to Norris, who likely brushed them off, but to other people facing mental health struggles around the world and aren’t as far in their journey to mitigate or overcome them.

“If we look at what Helmut Marko said, it’s disappointing when you hear that, especially when mental health is a massive issue worldwide at the moment with so many external factors going on,” Fitchett tells Motorsport.com.

“I thought those comments were below the belt. Sometimes when people try and pull someone or something else down, it’s often to pull themselves up, that’s a very common analogy. If you look across all sports, people take these little cheap shots at each other to try and destabilise or create a reaction or a distraction.”

Simon Fitchett working with Sergio Perez in 2012

To be fair to Red Bull at large, team principal Christian Horner applauded his Mercedes rival Toto Wolff for speaking up about mental issues in the past. Verstappen has also made contributions by participating in popular motorsport streamer Jimmy Broadbent’s Race for Mental Health, which is raising funds for Mind, the UK’s leading mental health charity that works with Mercedes and was previously partnered with McLaren.

Whatever Marko’s intentions, it has to be stressed that appraising a driver’s mental strengths and weaknesses in general is not the same thing as poking fun of someone’s mental health.

“Depression and anxiety and relating behavioural symptoms come under mental health,” says Fitchett, who now coaches a range of young drivers. “In terms of mental performance, yes, of course, anxiety, depression, panic attacks and inability to eat, they can impact your mental performance, absolutely. But what we’re looking at here is someone who’s being aware of certain weaknesses, happy to share it, and someone having a bit of a pop at it to see if he can get a reaction.”

But while McLaren and Red Bull continue to generate talking points as they duke it out on and off the track, what seems more interesting and relevant to the whole conversation is whether this mental weakness that Marko brought up is really that, or whether Norris’ refreshing openness about his mental health could be actually become a strength over time.

Lewis Hamilton – the most successful driver of all time – has also been vocal about his own battles against depression, and Wolff called it a “superpower” once he addressed it with hundreds of hours of therapy.

In a sport where the pressure of being responsible for the results of a 1000-strong team is enormous, where races are decided by the finest margins and lives are at stake, drivers are athletes who have to be finely tuned both physically and mentally to thrive. Just like young drivers being subjected to Formula 1’s G-forces for the first time might have to head back to the gym to beef up their neck muscles, identifying and acknowledging a mental “weakness” is the first step towards addressing it.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

As a public figure Norris’ on-going openness over his mental health has undoubtedly helped numerous people going through struggles of their own. And while his admission of feeling sick and nervous before every grand prix was revealing because of how rare it is to hear a driver say it out loud, he argues it has actually become a tool that helps him perform, sitting in his toolbox alongside his trademark extreme self-criticism that has also been ridiculed.

“It’s just about how you turn that into a positive thing. How do you not let it affect you in a bad way, and how can you actually use it in a good way, to help you focus on the correct things,” he said.

“Because I struggled quite a bit with it in the past, I feel like I’m able to deal with it in a much better way now, and therefore it doesn’t have much of an effect. I’m comfortable that I just have to go out and drive and that’s all I can do, not think about these external things. In the place I am now, fighting for wins and fighting in the championship, honestly, I feel like it’s another weekend.”

Speaking from his experience working with countless drivers, Fitchett agreed the way Norris has addressed his struggles is a strength rather than a weakness. “Absolutely, for me it’s a sign of strength that he’s comfortable with saying that,” he explained. “If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t say it. He deserves huge respect for that because so many remain silent.

“The last couple of years Lando wasn’t in a race winning car and he’s now been thrusted into this position where he’s expected to win races, and that is a massive pressure for anyone. Having had the privilege of working with some of the drivers during my seven years in F1, I often saw those moments where they were struggling. If you learn how to manage it, it is a game changer. For me, it is the difference between winning and losing.

He added: “But none of us are bulletproof and obviously you’re going to see some little wobbles, but if you look at Norris now compared to five or six races ago he’s evolved a lot. If you look at Lewis now compared to when he came in, he is an absolute role model for youngsters coming up and every season he just went from strength to strength.

“You really have to learn how to build up a resilience to these external distractions or things that can destabilise you, but I have huge respect for Lando for being open about it. For me, that shows a strength, because he’s actually acknowledged: ‘I know I’m not great at this, this and this’. But I’ll tell you what, give him another year or so and he’ll have developed huge resilience in those areas.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 1st position, Lando Norris, McLaren F1 Team, 3rd position, chat in Parc Ferme

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Nevertheless, F1 has long been an environment in which showing any sort of vulnerability is considered a cardinal sin. So has Norris handed his rivals an opening to be mercilessly exploited or has he already disarmed them by beating them to the punch? If it’s already out in the open, what is left to exploit?

“A good example of this comes from the world of boxing,” says Fitchett. “There was a fight a number of years ago between world champion Carl Froch and George Groves, who really got in his head. After their first fight Froch took on a sports psychologist and Groves was goading him about it. But Froch’s whole behaviour and reaction was completely different, he said absolutely nothing. You could see Carl won the second fight mentally before they even got into the ring. Groves didn’t know what to do, he wasn’t getting the reactions from Froch he was getting before.

“And because there is this stigma – and it definitely exists in motorsports – that if someone is seen to have been working with a psychologist, they think it’s because they’ve got a weakness. Well, none of us are infallible. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and we’re all different to each other. Froch said the reason he took on a psychologist was because he just didn’t want to leave any stone unturned, and in doing that he identified his weakness and he made himself even stronger. He said he wished he’d done it years ago.

“There are a number of F1 drivers currently working with psychologists, but they do like to keep that quiet. And of course you have to respect that, but at the same time it does highlight a lack of wanting to disclose that information, maybe because of what other people think.

“Self-awareness is one of the most important attributes in anything we do in life, be it elite sport or in the corporate world. Because once you understand who you are and what your strengths and weaknesses are, you can then actually understand others very quickly. And that really is a superpower.”

Manager Stephen Robinson has agreed a new contract that ties him to St Mirren until the summer of 2027.

The Northern Irishman left Morecambe to take charge in Paisley in February 2022 and has led the Buddies to back-to-back top-six finishes in his two full seasons.

The 49-year-old has steered St Mirren to their highest league positions in almost 40 years and in doing so qualified for Europe for the first time since 1987.

However they have lost three Scottish Premiership games in a row and sit eighth in the table, just three points off the bottom.

The former Motherwell manager cited the club’s “good ideas and medium-term vision” as reasons he was happy to sign the new deal.

“I’m very happy here. We’ve had massive success over the last two-and-a-half seasons,” he said.

“I felt it was the right time to commit and hopefully keep moving in the right direction.

“We’ve had a few sticky results over the last few weeks where things haven’t gone our way, but we’ve got a lot of belief in the club, what we do and I’m happy to try and push the place forward.

“It’s important for a club of our size to make forward-thinking decisions and forward planning and I’m very appreciative of the board’s support.”

Chairman John Needham said Robinson has been a key role in St Mirren “making real strides with our strategy to build the club’s strength and stability”.

“Extending his contract at this time reflects our ambition to maintain the levels of success we’ve enjoyed on the park over recent seasons,” he added.

Robert Sanchez, Chelsea, keeper, £4.7m – home to Newcastle

Newcastle’s goals have really dried up, with just one in their past three games and star striker Alexander Isak is out of form.

Sanchez, meanwhile, has two double-digit hauls this season and can be relied on for a save point or two – he is averaging 4.5 saves per game.

Josko Gvardiol, Manchester City, defender, £6.1m – home to Southampton

City have just one clean in eight games this season, which is baffling when you consider they kept 13 in 2023-24.

Surely one comes against Saints, who only have six goals so far.

Gvardiol scored a cracker at Wolves last time out and he’s one of the best goalscoring options in defence if you can afford him.

Rico Lewis, Manchester City, defender, £4.8m – home to Southampton

Going all in on City’s defence this week. Lewis has started seven of City’s eight games this week so, famous last words, it seems as though he is a first-choice player for Pep Guardiola.

Lewis’ underlying stats are still strong. Against Wolves he had seven entries into the final third and five touches in the box – the third most among defenders behind Gvardiol (6) and Leicester’s James Justin (7).

Nathan Collins, Brentford, defender, £4.5m – home to Ipswich

Like Southampton, Ipswich have also scored just six this season and Brentford will fancy their first clean sheet of the season.

Collins has had four goal involvements this season, which is decent for a £4.5m defender.

SNOOKER icon Jimmy White walked out of his Northern Ireland Open match leaving his opponent and the referee baffled.

The Whirlwind, 62, impressed in his first-round win over Hossein Vafaei.

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And he had led Martin O’Donnell twice in the early stages of their second-round tie on Wednesday.

But in the fifth frame, with White and O’Donnell locked together at two frames each, the six-time world championship runner-up had enough.

O’Donnell had moved 44 points clear with 43 remaining on the table after White missed a simple red.

And the snooker legend was in a hurry to leave the auditorium as soon as his opponent moved clear of the points left on the table.

Rather than waiting for a potential O’Donnell miss and returning to try and force a snooker, White got out of his seat and walked out without any comment.

This left O’Donnell and the referee bemused, while the crowd also seemed unsure what to do.

O’Donnell was awarded the frame and White did return to complete the match, losing 4-2 to crash out of the Northern Ireland Open.

Yet despite the bizarre conclusion to the fifth frame, O’Donnell chose not to focus on it during his post-match interview.

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He said: “Any win against Jimmy is a good win.

“He’s such a legend of the game and an inspiration for a lot of players.

“To still be doing what he’s doing at his age and still enjoying practising and competing, it’s very inspirational.”

White famously lost six world championship finals – five in a row between 1990 and 1994.

He won the Masters in 1984, UK Championship in 1992, and 10 ranking events.

Inside Luca Brecel’s mad year since winning £500k

By Rob Maul

IF YOU became a world champion of your sport and pocketed £500,000 prize money, how exactly would you celebrate?

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Maybe buy a nice car. Treat the missus. Go on a lavish holiday perhaps.

Well, Luca Brecel has done all of that and more – put simply, he’s had the time of his life over these past 12 months.

The Belgian Bullet was crowned King of Sheffield in May 2023 in remarkable fashion, despite no practice and having never won a match at the venue on previous visits.

Brecel immediately splash £250,000, half of his World Champs earnings, on a stunning red Ferrari 488 – which he admits he NEVER drives.

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He has since lived the high life, exploring the globe with his girlfriend Laura, piling on the pounds with some fine dining and hangout out with an Arsenal star.

He even lost his Crucible-winning cue.

Find out more about Brecel’s incredible year…

While there has been plenty of chopping and changing in terms of the overall squad, Wiegman has largely stuck with the same names – although injury has sometimes forced her hand.

Captain Leah Williamson and Millie Bright have both had their own injury woes but still seem to be the Dutchwoman’s first choice centre-back pairing when fully fit, although Alex Greenwood and Jess Carter are both trusted replacements.

Carter has also been used at left-back along with Niamh Charles, while Lucy Bronze is unchallenged at right-back.

In recent European qualifiers, Lauren Hemp and Beth Mead have flanked each wing like they did in the last Euros.

Alessia Russo has replaced Ellen White to lead England’s frontline and, although she has had an indifferent start to the season for Arsenal and is yet to find the net in the league, only Mead has scored more goals for the Lionesses in the latest squad.

Respective moves abroad to Barcelona and Bayern Munich have paid off for Kiera Walsh and Georgia Stanway, who remain regular starters in the England midfield.

The biggest question mark hangs over the goalkeeper position, with Chelsea’s Hannah Hampton starting the last three England games instead of Mary Earps.

Earps was Wiegman’s top choice during the Euros and last year’s World Cup, but the 2023 BBC Sports Personality of the Year winner has had fitness issues and struggled for game time since her move to Paris St-Germain in the summer.