Sebastien Ogier became during his second season in Citroen a WRC-winner and redeemed at once his promotion to drive beside Sebastien Loeb next season.
It is very obvious that Kimi Räikkönen will drive next year his second season in Citroen's Junior team. Team manager Benoit Nogier doesn't yet promise Kimi the same speed in development as Ogier has had.
– One has to remember that Ogier drove three years on Junior-level before he came to WRC. This weekend is Kimi's whole life's 12th rally, Nogier reminded in Turun Sanomat's interview.
– Even though Ogier learned quickly his situation can't be compared to Kimi's development in rally. Kimi has started from zero whereas Sebastien's basic work was already done.
– The only way to compare is that Sebastien was about 1,2-1,3 seconds per kilometer behind the lead during his first WRC-season whereas Kimi has been pretty much the same behind the lead.
Kimi's potential has not yet taken form
How big thing would it be for Citroen Junior Team if Räikkönen would want to continue his rally career in 2011?
– Whatever Kimi is going to do is his own decision. Let's just wait for his final decision but at least he looks like he is happy here in the rally-world. Of course it would be a great thing for us if Kimi would decide to continue in rally next year, Nogier says.
Since Räikkönen has this year learned everything from scratch, how much better could he be next year?
– It's always very difficult to estimate these kind of things beforehand. Probably Kimi will then be less than a second behind the top in speed/km. But we can get an image of what Kimi could do at his best only after Kimi gets even close to his own limits.
– At this moment everything is purely learning for Kimi and we can't know his real potential. This is only the beginning of the story but we can already see that the potential is big. That's for sure, Nogier says.
Both teams get same cars next year
Nogier tells that Citroen's Junior team gets to start working with the new DS3-car at the same time as the main team.
– This year regulations ordered that the main team has to use a newer model. Next year that regulation is gone and the cars in both teams are classified equally, Nogier clears up.
– We don't yet know more specifically but the new cars should be ready in January when we start testing for Rally Sweden.
Räikkönen doesn't believe that switching to S2000-cars would devastate anything if he would drive rally next year.
– It's not any big change. Those new cars are sort of a combination of these WRC-cars and the S2000-car I drove last year. They just have a different engine and power transmission.
Will the change in car require some more learning again?
– I don't know but they are a bit different and at least a little smaller than these current one, Räikkönen thinks.
Manager isn't yet negotiating
Kimi Räikkönen's manager Steve Robertson is on the paddock-area in Trier. He denies that he is there to negotiate.
– It's best to follow the situation on different frontiers rather than seal a deal at this stage, Robertson tells Turun Sanomat.
HEIKKI KULTA
Source: Turun Sanomat
Courtesy: Nicole
