Kimi Raikkonen, notably once Formula One's boldest and fastest driver, but the gloomiest and least cooperative off track, can be a golden oldie on his surprise comeback to grand prix racing.
That's the opinion of former champion, Briton Damon Hill, who reckons that at 32 and despite two years out of the grand prix chase with doubts mounting that he can ever recapture his F1 form, the Finn is not past it and can still be crowned king.
Hill points out that he himself won his only world title at the age of 36, while Nigel Mansell clinched his at 39 and Alain Prost secured his fourth crown aged 38.
Raikkonen, the world champion with Ferrari in 2007, has been signed by Lotus-Renault after an unsuccessful two-year break trying his hand at international rallying.
He will have his first full-blooded try-out behind the wheel for his new team inside the next couple of weeks and that is when he will have to prove he is ready and capable of holding his own.
He has not driven an F1 car since his last grand prix for Ferrari in Abu Dhabi 2009, after which the Italian legends offloaded him from his £20 million (Dh114 million)-a-year seat.
In the mean time, the 18-time winner has been working on a simulator.
Rivals and last season's strugglers Williams were keen to sign him up, but Lotus team boss Eric Boullier beat them to it.
Boullier, who has taken a chance on party-lover Raikkonen, notoriously awkward and reluctant to conform and help out with money-spinning sponsorship projects, forecasts: "I think he will be able to be at 100 per cent quickly."
Hill backs Boullier's trust and judgement, saying: "Kimi's return is great for F1 — and good luck to him. He is going to have to show that he has still got it.
"He has won a world championship already. I had only just got into F1 at his age, 32, and it took me another four years before I won the title. But I got there. So can he... again.
"Kimi has definitely got a couple more world championships in him."
Hill's old opponent Gerhard Berger, the ex-Ferrari ace, does not agree and says: "I would not have re-signed him. I would say it is 50-50 whether or not he'll be able to reach the top again.
Typically Raikkonen is unfazed by the criticism and he said: "I never really take notice of what people say or think. I do my own thing and as long as I am happy that's the main thing."
The big question is: if workaholic legend Michael Schumacher could not hit it off on his comeback, what chance Raikkonen with his attitude?
The author is an expert on motorsport based in England
