Raikkonen Rallying News.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Kimi's Arctic Rally....

After he got out of the snowbank......

Raikkonen then drove through the third stage and has now made it back to the service area in Rovaniemi, although the Red Bull driver incurred time penalties getting to stage three. The time was lost because he was stuck in a snowbank on stage 2, until some spectators showed up with shovels to help them out.

I have read reports elsewhere that it is now confirmed that he hit Luca di Montezemolo's ego!



The team replaced the radiator and oil cooler along with bodywork at the front of the C4 WRC in the 20-minute service. Raikkonen left service seven minutes late, which is expected to add a further 1m10s of penalties to his overall total.

He takes total responsibility for the crash and misheard the pace notes. Kimi's later stage times are very credible, running within 0.5 - 0.8 secs/klm of Sordo.

He is back and was running times 2nd fastest to Sordo on all three of this afternoon's stages.
Kimi ran 3rd SS only 12 secs slower than Sordo! Less than 1 sec per km loss after crashing out! He is crazy!

He made adjustments to the C4 WRC at service ahead of the final stage in northern Finland in the evening. He adjusted the suspension on the car to assist turn-in to corners, while also working to help with traction at the back of the car.

Kimi's brother Rami, driving Kimi's own Fiat Punto had a triple roll! He also is continuing.

Sordo remains clear at the head of the field. There are six further stages tomorrow, with three of those repeated.

Kimi has set his sights firmly on improving his pace tomorrow.

[Matt]

So where is he placed overall. It's all good and well for you to put things in bold and say how crazy Kimi is for driving soooooooooo quick but if he's down in 28th

[Matt]

Raikkonen it seems was so jealous of Michael Schumacher's return to F1 that he's paid a bit of an homage to ol' stiff neck by crashing into another car on his way to a rally stage, similar if you may recall to Schumacher colliding with a back marker during a siting lap on the way to the grid at Shanghai a few seasons ago.

“There was a small incident yesterday,” [Benoit] Nogier told AUTOSPORT. “It was not in a stage, it was on the road to a stage.

“Kimi almost missed a junction and was in the process of starting to turn around when another competing car came into the same junction and there was a small impact.

“There was no problem with Kimi’s car. He came through the stage with no problem and then the mechanics made some small repair to the car after the stage.

“There was no danger of Kimi not being able to drive the car, it was never that bad.”

[Everso Biggyballies]

It doesnt sound at all similar to that incident, where Michael drove at high speed into another competor, 100% his own fault, and writing both cars off on the spot. That was more like Lewis in pit lane Canada

[Everso Biggyballies]

Good article by Adam Cooper, (Autosport writer) about 'Kimi's new life'.
He speaks of Kimi as not being at all how he is portrayed.... and claims he is one of the more intersting drivers around.

As we all get pumped up about F1 testing and this year’s stellar line-up in the top few teams, let’s spare a thought for the World Champion who got away – Kimi Raikkonen.

Squeezed out of Ferrari, admittedly with a nice parting gift in his bank account, Kimi preferred the jump into the world of rallying to any possible alternatives in F1. His fulltime WRC career gets under way in Sweden today.

I spoke to him about the transition a few weeks ago, and you may have read the resulting feature in Autosport. He had no reason to make himself available during his winter break – there was no team or sponsor telling him to do so – but purely as a favour he found the time to call me back, and later even sent an email asking to see the story. And no, he didn’t request any changes!

I’ve been lucky enough to spend a bit of time with Kimi away from the track, and I would always argue that contrary to popular belief, he is one of the most interesting drivers you could meet. He is great fun to be with, and is also a decent human being. Many of his rivals, at least those who occasionally hang out with him, would agree with me. Just ask Pedro de la Rosa, his former McLaren team mate. You couldn’t meet two drivers with such different public personas, and yet Pedro regards Kimi as one his closest pals in the sport.

I didn’t have space to include everything Kimi said in that Autosport interview, but with the WRC about to kick off it seemed like a good time to return to the recording and scoop up the best outtakes for your consumption. One thing he has certainly done right is get himself the best possible equipment in the form of the Citroen, which is a huge step up from the Abarth he played around with last year.

“The only option for me was in rallies, and I wanted to have at least a competitive car,” he told me. “The Fiat was definitely not a good car, everybody knows it, so if I go there I want to have a good team and good car. So at least I give myself a chance if I learn quickly and get it right I have a good car and team behind me.”

There’s no doubt that he’s deadly serious about getting decent results, and podium finishes are his target. “That’s why I want to have a good car, because in the end I want to do my best and try to get as high up as I can. I have no interest to go there and just drive around, it’s definitely to try to get good results.”

When I asked what type of surface he expected to do better on, he had no doubts about where he would feel most at home.

“I would say the tarmac should be the easiest one, I did a little bit with my Fiat on asphalt. For sure you can read the road more easily just because you’ve done so much on tarmac in F1, it gives you a better feeling. Snow is the most difficult thing. I’ve done most of my rallying in the snow, but it’s still the most challenging thing.

“You’re doing some places 200 between the trees and for sure it’s different than F1, but that’s part of the whole sport. You can get hurt, so you’d better stay on the road!

“I need a lot of time in the car, and on rallies. Like I said it’s the most difficult thing I have done in my career so far, the biggest challenge. But I enjoy it and it’s good fun, it’s a new thing.”

This year of course he’ll be watching F1 from afar. Having given up the chance to drive the McLaren, he’ll certainly keep an eye on how Jenson Button, the man who eventually took the seat, will perform: “For sure it’s interesting. I’m pretty sure that Lewis will beat him.”

He saved his best answer for when I asked whether he was concerned about being forgotten by F1. “I don’t really stress much about those things.”

Kimi, I think we’d figured that one out…

[Matt]

You didn't bold this line

“For sure it’s interesting. I’m pretty sure that Lewis will beat [Jenson].”

[Everso Biggyballies]

You didn't bold this line

“For sure it’s interesting. I’m pretty sure that Lewis will beat [Jenson].”

I didn't think it really relevant to a Rallying thread about Raikkonen

Anyway a couple of pics to show the new side of Kimi, getting down and changing his own wheels, and obviously really getting a lot more happiness out of the sport.

First a video of his off on the first day of Rally Sweden. Onboard footage of the offas well as digging out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wShTy2QieWA

[Jari]

Great to see kimi happy even if his rally was ruined and playing in the snow.

Kimi seems promising. Just needs to keep it on the road. Those snowbanks can be killers for your rally.

7 top ten rally stage times is a good start.

[Matt]

Finally us Lewis 'Gravel Trap' Hamilton fans have a retort to you Kimi 'Snowbank' Raikkonen fans

[Everso Biggyballies]

Finally us Lewis 'Gravel Trap' Hamilton fans have a retort to you Kimi 'Snowbank' Raikkonen fans

At least Kimi does it with his byo shovel...... Lewis of course did it with the aid of an FIA ordered crane that dropped him back on track facing the right way!

I say give the F1 drivers a shovel let them dig there own way out. Oh hang on they usually go off onto a concrete run off and dont even need to lift off in F1.

Although they did once have an F1 race in the snow, way back when. (I have a piccie of Peterson spinning in it at Brands!) I will errm dig it out.

[Everso Biggyballies]

I couldnt find the Peterson one straight away, but I did find a pic of Dave Purley at Oulton Park in the UK in the snow.... F5000 1975

[Jari]

Finally us Lewis 'Gravel Trap' Hamilton fans have a retort to you Kimi 'Snowbank' Raikkonen fans

Yeah but Kimi fans don't care



Nice find EB and nice pic.

[Everso Biggyballies]

I just found this interview with Kimi which more or less backs up my comments on the key to rallying being experience and pace notes being good..... The Citroen boss seems happy.

Kimi thinks the gravel surface in Mexico will be easier for him to handle than the Swedish snow.

"For sure everything should be a bit easier on the gravel that I know from the past a little bit," said Raikkonen. "Everything I've done on snow before has always been a little bit tricky.

"We'll see how it goes in the test next week and hopefully we can improve in Mexico. We should be able to."

One of Raikkonen's targets is to make his pace notes more accurate.

"Of course it's much easier when you go second time [through the stages] but we had particularly good notes today and yesterday on some stages, and that makes a massive difference when you're not sure if the notes are completely right," he said.

"When you go through for the second time you can change them a bit and it makes it much, much easier. I'm sure experience makes a big, big difference. If we come here next time it's going to be a hell of a lot easier. But that's how it goes, you need to get the experience and then you can start pushing hard.

"I don't think it's the driving so much, you just need to get experience and get everything right, and the notes need to be really perfect to go fast."

Despite Raikkonen's incidents, his Citroen Junior team boss Benoit Nogier was delighted with his performance.

"Kimi has made a remarkable start on his first world championship event with us," Nogier said.

"We stuck completely to the plan that we had set out beforehand. Kimi got progressively quicker, but also remained calm in the face of all the new things that he had to learn."

[Matt]

Finally us Lewis 'Gravel Trap' Hamilton fans have a retort to you Kimi 'Snowbank' Raikkonen fans

Yeah but Kimi fans don't care

I know one who does

[nightcrawler]

Kimi finishing 30th overall.. What a start to the WRC campaign. I am sure he has impressed a lot of people across the globe. From here there is scope only for improvement.

To be frank i didn't expect Kimi to be 30th. I thought Kimi would be finishing the rally dead last. But, it hasn't been that worse. I hope he collects points consistently during the season and starts his hunting within an year or two..

All the best Kimi..