Just like we remembered to begin with, Portugal is a difficult rally. When the stages are difficult the challenges are spectacular. Yet we could drive for three days without blunders. It left us with good feelings and we got yet again more points. Now we have two rallies from this season under our belt and we have kept the car on the road. In Portugal the consistency, somekind of evenness, was found. In that sense it's good to look ahead. When you can drive a rally like this cleanly, then you can little by little start to lift the pace too.
To begin with our setups were completely *** No swearing ***-up. The team made a small mistake and the car was pretty much in wrong setups. We discovered it on Friday and on Saturday we got immediately more trust in the driving when the car started working the way it should have worked after the tests.
From there on I got a good feeling to drive whereas on Friday we were completley in the blue thinking what was wrong with it. Oh well, it was the car.
On Friday the air disappeared hastily from the tyre. So we drove that stage with an empty ragged wheel to the finish line and lost time there. The rally as a whole was okay and the result was okay. I should have drove completely super in order to battle for a better position.
At least we learned more about the car again. The routine comes from feeling the car. Sometimes I'm completely satisfied with my driving, sometimes not. I have noticed one thing though, the more I drive rally, the less situations.
That's how it should be too, so that we can try and drive faster.
Source: KIMIRAIKKONEN.COM
Courtesy: Nicole
