Kimi Räikkönen and his co-driver Kaj Lindström knew that Rally Portugal would be a difficult race. That's what it also became since Räikkönen, who finished tenth, ended up losing over 11 and a half minutes to his team mate Sebastien Ogier who won the race.-We knew that there are two difficult rallies on the first half of the season, Jordan and this one. We got a point but there were chances for better if it wasn't for the tyre puncture on Sunday. Even before the rally the only plan was to just finish the race and gather experience. In that sense it went as expected. We didn't have any bigger goals for this race anyway, says Lindström.
In Rally Turkey in mid April Räikkönen finished promisingly at fifth place. Lindström points out that Räikkönen benefitted from the fact that the race set in Istanbul was a new experience for all the teams and drivers. Portugal's special stages are demanding for an unexperienced driver anyway.
-There's slippery, slow and technical roads here and a lot is happening all the time. Listening to the pace notes and other things are emphasized even more in a race like this. More experience is needed, said Lindström.
At which point can we start expecting better results from Kimi?
-We have to remember how many rallies he's driven in his life. It's a bit like asking why Ville Peltonen doesn't win the world championship of figure skating during the first year. Kimi has very limited experience of rallying. Proper results cannot be expected this year. Kimi should be given the peace to get used to rally and if he decides to continue after this year, then we can start expecting those good positions, thinks Lindström.
Lindströn wasn't able to say whether the rally experiment is a several year project for the 2007 F1 world champion.
-It hasn't been discussed yet. At some point of the year he'll make a decision about continuing. Now we're only at the end of May and we're concentrating on driving rally, Lindström says.
Time to strike in Bulgaria?
The next WRC rally will be driven 9th -11th of July on Bulgarian asphalt roads. The race, which is in the WRC program for the first time, may be one of the best places for Räikkönen to show his speed.
-Bulgaria is again a new race for everybody and we go to an asphalt surface. One of the variables is then more familiar since Kimi has driven on asphalt all his live. There finding braking points and other things will be easier. It will be interesting to see how driving on asphalt will start going, Lindström says.
On the second weekend of June Räikkönen will try out asphalt roads in Lanterna Rally driven near Genova in Italy.
-It's just a practice race. The race is first and then we'll have our first asphalt test. We're just going there to see how a car like this feels on asphalt. We'll probably get ideas there about what to test and develop in the following week's asphalt test, Lindström tells.
*Ville Peltonen is a Finnish ice hockey player. Kaj's point is that if he suddenly started figure skating, we couldn't expect him to win anything during the first year.
Source: MTV3 – Lauri Ouvinen
Courtesy: Dracaena
