Despite contriving to crash on only the second stage of the Arctic Rally in his debut in a Citroen rally car, former F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen managed to make the finish of the Finnish event to leave him "pleased" with the situation.
Raikkonen moved to the Citroen Junior WRC team for 2010 after losing his drive with Ferrari to Fernando Alonso. Officially, the season is a "sabbatical" from F1, and will see him contest 12 of the 13 WRC rounds in a Citroen C4 world rally car.
The Arctic event, a round of the Finnish national rally championship, was a one-off appearance for Raikkonen and fellow Citroen driver for next season Dani Sordo, to help him gain experience of his new car.
The two-day event didn't get off to the best of starts, with Raikkonen losing control of his car on the second stage and hitting a tree.
But, with the help of spectators, he and co-driver Kaj Lindstrom managed to get the car going again and made the end of the stage, albeit dropping over half an hour in time in the process.
The Finn eventually made it to the end of the event in 58th place overall, coincidentally the same position he reached in the F1 driver effort ratings in 2009, and although he ended 36 minutes behind Sordo, who won the rally overall, his times compared to the other Citroen man were competitive.
"Things didn't exactly get off to the best start as we went off the road during the second stage," Raikkonen mumbled at the end of the rally, "But luckily there was no mechanical damage and I was able to continue in the rally.
"From there it got a lot better for me and we were much more consistent. We put a few more kilometres under our belt, which was vital to help us continue learning the C4 WRC.
"As well as being pleased by our performances I was also pleased by the way we were able to work with the team. We developed our set-up in the right direction and now we are going to continue our work in order to arrive in Sweden in the strongest possible position."
The Citroen team manager added that Raikkonen's pace had been on a par with his team mate, saying that: "He was quickly able to put his mishap at the start of the rally behind him and get to the end of a complex event, whilst improving at the same pace as Dani."
The first round of the 2010 WRC gets underway on February 12th in Sweden.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
