Kimi Raikkonen is one of Finnish motorsport's all-time greats. With a Formula 1 World title and 18 grand prix wins to his name, it would be foolish to argue otherwise.
However, the Scandinavian nation has always prided itself on producing the planet's best rally drivers, and this weekend's Rally Finland, the latest round of the World Championship, gives him a chance to become one of them.
Rally Finland, named the 1000 Lakes Rally until 1997, has been dominated by locals since its inception. Just eight times in 59 years has a foreign driver won (and only four of those went to non-Scandinavians).
Hannu Mikkola and Marcus Gronholm have both won the rally a record seven times, while Markku Alen and Tommi Makinen have taken six and five victories respectively.
Of the current front-runners, only Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen have tasted victory, while three-time winner Juha Kankkunen will make a popular return after a few years out of the sport.
Loeb and Hirvonen are currently the two highest-ranked rally drivers in the Castrol Rankings in third and seventh places respectively, and will be sure-fire contenders for the win.
But what of Raikkonen's chances? His most convincing showing since switching codes unsurprisingly came on the asphalt-based Rally Bulgaria as he set some competitive stage times before crashing his Citroen C4.
However, the Citroen Junior Rally Team driver's best finish of his WRC career came with fifth place on Rally Turkey - a gravel event!
Going in Raikkonen's favour is that he has competed on Rally Finland before - his WRC debut came on the 2009 event in a Super 2000 Fiat and will be able to bank on the experience he gained on the Jyvaskyla-based event 12 months ago.
Going against the driver though, who lies 38th in the Castrol Rankings, is the strength of his opposition. As well as Loeb and Hirvonen, there's Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala (36), Petter Solberg (42) and his own team-mate Sebastien Ogier (28), who won't make life easy for him.
One thing guaranteed though is that he will be spectacular. If he can keep his Citroen between the trees and ditches for three days, he'll come out confidence enhanced. If he could win!
Source: Castrol Rankings
