For sure, it’s a nice spice of this sport every single rally being so different from each other.Obviously I didn’t have a clue what to expect from German Rally. In the end of the day it did not have that much to do with the real tarmac rallies. The roads were very dirty and some parts we had on gravel, too.
The main thing for us was to finish the rally. We did that, we got all the important miles eith the race speed plus we got more points to our total, too.
Once again I learn more of rally driving. We made a couple of mistakes and you cannot change that afterwards. I have to learn everything by myself and while making a mistake you always learn the most.
Before the rally many people asked me how much easier it is for me to have a rally on asphalt after racing in circuits for such a long time. Well, I can tell you, it’s not that huge advantage for me in rallies on tarmac. In Germany it felt great to go fast there. The roads were narrow and you have keep the focus at the peak all the time.
It was not easy. No question about that. Again, I had to search the right rythm in the beginning.
This is a very challenging rally and good for us, it’s over and done. Well, I made two mistakes on Sunday morning and because of that, Wilson managed to pass us and got the position six. I had a bad feeling for some time for loosing some points, but all in all, it’s important to keep on going with the patience and remember that making mistakes belongs to the process of learning rallies.
The pace notes worked quite well. The was no problem with that side it felt nice.
This was my third ever tarmarc rally with this Red Bull Citroen C4 car and my second WRC asphalt rally. I’m satisfied with gaining a lot of more experience from the asphalt rally driving. Im also happy for gaining my first ever fastesr stage timr in WRC rallies. I don’t know how much the top guys slowed it down in the last stage, but for a racing driver, the fastest time is always the fastest time.
Now we have a short break again. The nest rally in calendar is Japan and we don’t have any test before that. Obviously Japan will be very difficult for me as a rookie. I have heard that those stages are quite tricky.
But we keep on trying to do our best and let’s wait and see, what kind of speed we find there. Once again my target is to finish that rally, too.
Source: Kimiraikkonen.com
