RAIKKONEN goes Rallying

[Mad Maper 13]

I love the jump just before the start/finish line

[Oldtony]

After Stage 4 Kimi is 19th around 3 mins behind.
Currently
1: Hirvonen
2: Loeb
3: Sordo
4: Lavatala

Peter Solberg way back after 6mins in a ditch.

[Everso Biggyballies]

To put that in perspective you have to add that he isnt in a full WRC car, but a Gp N car, and in the Stadium Special ended up 0.1sec behind the Group N leader, and as you can see from the clip posted, beating the guy he was lined up against (they do the stadium specials in 2 car run off style) by well over a second.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Räikkönen fourth (in class) going into day 2

Kimi Räikkönen lies seventeenth overall and fourth in class after Day 1 of the Rally of Finland. - Lets not forget the spectacular Finnish challenge is considered the toughest and ultimate rallying challenge currently run, and not only is it his first WRC event, but is Räikkönen's first ever gravel event.  He is just 15 seconds off the podium positions.  A brilliant performance so far.

No special dispensations or test sessions for Raikkonen, (unlike the guy whose place he replaced at Ferrari who seems to have forgotten how to drive and needs testing sessions and rule dispensations to compete.)

Raikkonen even did his own pace notes.  Kimi drives in his own Fiat Punto S2000 which bears a livery reflecting his crash helmet.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Raikkonen ready to raise his pace  

Kimi Raikkonen says he is ready to step his Rally Finland pace up a level on the second day.

Apparently there was a few issues with the handling Kimi did not like and has called for some changes to the setup be made overnight

"For sure, I could go faster than this, but at the moment, it doesn't make any sense," said Raikkonen. "I need to find a level and continue there.

"At the end of the day, I was trying to go a bit faster and the confidence was coming. I made two mistakes this morning: I had two overshoots, one in the second stage and one in stage four. This afternoon, there were no errors."

Raikkonen's co-driver Kaj Lindstrom added: "Everything is going really well. In some of the really high-speed places, the notes are a little more tricky, but we're not making changes to the notes; you don't need to when you make a good set straight away.

"Okay, we did change the notes in the two places where we lost time with the overshoots this morning, but apart from that nothing."  

Raikkonen has not put a mark on the Punto - which has also run perfectly - through the opening leg of his first ever World Rally Championship round.  Lets hope that upping his pace doesnt alter that.

- he was beating many guys who are "top" rally drivers in their class in Finland. That's quite something, those guys have gone rallying for years so it must be a bit embarrassing for them not to do better times than Kimi -

The Ferrari driver is not the only F1 star in town..... Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel is an interested spectator and come to see his mate play, and McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen is coming to watch his countryman in action tomorrow.

How many went to watch Schumi test.  None!  

Raikkonen has already set two top-three stage times.


The overall results:

After 10/23 stages

  1. Mikko Hirvonen     Ford  1.04.12,3
  2. Sebastien Loeb     Citroen +   3,3
  3. Dani Sordo         Citroen +  20,0
  4. Jari-Matti Latvala Ford    +  30,1
  5. Matti Rantanen     Ford    +1.14,1
  6. Henning Solberg    Ford    +1.16,7
  7. Mads Östberg       Subaru  +1.36,5
  8. Jari Ketomaa       Subaru  +1.38,4
  9. Sebastien Ogier    Citroen +2.14,6
 10. Matthew Wilson     Ford    +2.18,1
 --------------------------------------
 14. Juho Hänninen      Skoda   +5.32,7
 15. Anton Alén         Fiat    +6.26,5
 16. Janne Tuohino      Peugeot +6.49,3
 17. Kimi Räikkönen     Fiat    +7.05,1



Raikkonen tipped for class podium says Tommi Makinen


Makinen added that he was certain Raikkonen would have been a world champion in rallying if he had taken to that side of the sport instead of racing.

A few interesting comments from multi WRC Champion Tommi Makinen[/b]

  Four-time world champion Tommi Makinen has tipped Kimi Raikkonen for a Rally Finland podium in the Group N category this week.

Asked if he was surprised at Raikkonen's early pace, Makinen said: "No, I'm not. You might be, but I have sat with him and watched him drive. He is very, very natural in the way he drives. He's not aggressive or anything like that, we know where he is. I don't think there are many drivers who could get in the car and do what he is doing."

"For sure he would have been champion if he came here straight away," said Makinen. "There's no question about that from the driving side, the only thing which might be slowing him down a little bit could be the communication with the co-driver. This is something completely new to him. This is quite a challenge compared with F1, to come and do something new like this is very good for him."

[auto]

Cant wait to see Kimi there full time

Get rid of Jari Matti and bring in Kimi. I bet he would crash less.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Hehehehe that would be nice.   WRC Champion, the first to ever achieve the WDC / WRC double..... that would mean he would also be the first to achieve a GP / WRC event win as well.

get him to do Le Mans as well and be a VERY unique all round champion

All a bit of a pipe dream but very achievable one would imagine.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Some pics of Kimi on Friday Day 1 of WRC Finland showing the livery on his car.

Click for larger

[Everso Biggyballies]

Engine issue could stop Raikkonen
Currently still running third.

Kimi Raikkonen's run in the Rally Finland could soon come to an end as his Abarth Grande Punto has developed an ominous engine problem.

Although the Tommi Makinen Racing team is sending Raikkonen back out onto today's final loop of stages, one of the engine's cylinders has a compression problem, and that the team is not optimistic about the car's chances of lasting the rest of the event.  His co-driver Kaj Lindstrom is also having to push the car at times to start it due to starter motor problems. 

In addition to the engine issue, a broken shock absorber led to damage of the car's sump guard in  on the second loop today.

"It's a shame, it would be nice to do the rally with the car working all the time," said Raikkonen. "Every time we come to service something is broken and we can't fix it perfectly.

"The engine has been a big problem all day. "All the time something is breaking, we've had lots of problems on this loop."

Despite the problems, Raikkonen  remains third among the Group N/Super 2000 cars, behind only Intercontinental Rally Challenge frontrunners Juho Hanninen and Anton Alen.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Oh Dear.... Kimi Rolls out with 4 stages to go

Kimi Raikkonen appears to be out of the Rally Finland after rolling on today's final stage, with only a short day of 4 stages remaining.

Kimi was setting extremely rapid times in his Abarth Grande Punto despite being hampered by a growing engine problem.

He was running third among the Super 2000 cars and 15th overall when he rolled on Vaarinmaja this afternoon.

Reports from the scene suggest that Raikkonen's car went over several times, but that both Kimi and his co-driver Kaj Lindstrom are unhurt.  

Oh well, he was trying hard to make up time lost with his engine problems..... it was always likely to happen on this event.  Regardless of this, to be running in a podium position and setting the stage times he was will have certainly opened a few eyes.  

EDIT:  This is what happened.....

Kiwi went into a tightening corner with a big rock on the outside. He went a little bit wide into the turn, hit the stone, which pulled the nose of the car into the ditch and he rolled two times or something. There were a few rocks around and they lost one wheel - the car was damaged and they couldn't drive it back.....

Apparently the previous casr through had had an accident at the same point.

[Eno the Wonderdog]

Hehehehe that would be nice.   WRC Champion, the first to ever achieve the WDC / WRC double..... that would mean he would also be the first to achieve a GP / WRC event win as well.

get him to do Le Mans as well and be a VERY unique all round champion

All a bit of a pipe dream but very achievable one would imagine.

That would be rock and roll! I'm more a fan of Kimi every time I read more about the bloke. Like entering races as James Hunt in a gorilla suit to be inconspicous. I put up a bunch of quotes I'd found somewhere here. My Missus is working with Finns at the moment and apparently they have an odd sense of humour.. very VERY dry!

I thought someone had done the 'triple threat' though - or was that Le mans, Indy and Monaco??

[Everso Biggyballies]

Graham Hill is the only one so far, (but that was as you say Le Mans Indy and Monaco) although there are some that have scored 2 of  the 3.  In fact some now refer to the Triple Crown as WDC in place of Monaco.  Either way Hill is the only one to cover all bases.

Re Kimi's sense of humour, I have watched the programme of this weekends WRC and he is a much more relaxed person away from the mic in your face world of F1, laughing and joking with Seb Vettel plus a list of more championships in one place as I have ever seen.  (All the Finnish WRC stars and others)..  Interviewed after stages he is joking about getting too much air and landing a bit heavy, laughing off the engine problem which had the car running on three cylinders (while he was still posting top 3 group N times).  After his roll he is laughing and joking saying its part of rallying and was only a slow (double ) roll over, going on to say he hasnt rolled a car for a while, when he was a kid on the road.

Its like Mika, also came across to many as very monotonous in F1 but he had a wicked sense of humour as well once you looked into him.