The tarmac will immediately give Kimi a feeling in rally driving

This weekend Kimi Räikkönen will drive only his second tarmac rally in WRC. It raises the expectations when this surface is more familiar to the track-driver than snow and gravel is.

Would it help if all WRC-rallies would be on tarmac?

– I don't know. This rally is a completely different thing than the rally in Bulgaria. It was new for everybody. Here those others have been pushing these stages for many years and it gives them a huge advantage. But of course it's easier for me when we drive on tarmac.

– Tarmac is an easier surface because I immediately get a betten hang of it. Of course you learn that when you have drove on tracks all your life but even if this is rally it has nothing to do with driving on the track. It's just easier to get the feeling, Räikkönen told Turun Sanomat.

The speciality of Germany Rally is the 48 km long stage on concrete.

– We broke three tyres there when we made notes but they were civilian car tyres. In rally there won't be that kind of danger because the tyres are so hard. It isn't bumpy but it's really slippery so you can't afford to make any mistakes there because the concrete 'things' are so close.

Sebastien Loeb is the king of tarmac rallies.

– He drives well. He has been track-racing and is a Le Mans -driver. Loeb was fast on tarmac right from the beginning at it took time for him to learn to be fast on snow and gravel too, Räikkönen reminded.

Source: Turun Sanomat
Courtesy: Nicole

KIMI JUST OUTSIDE THE TOP 10 IN BULGARIA

Kimi Räikkönen, Red Bull's fearless iceman and the 2007 Formula One World Champion, owes most of his success to a certain Edgar Purnell Hooley. In many ways, this important personality could be considered as the godfather of motorsport.

Hooley was walking along the road one day in 1901 when he saw some sticky tar spilt on the ground. Somebody had laid some gravel on it so that people could cross the puddle without getting their shoes dirty. The result was a remarkably strong, consistent and dust-free road surface. Hooley patented it the following year, under the name Tarmac.

Without him, there would be no racing circuits. Motorways would be made of loose gravel. And there would certainly not be any asphalt rallies. Bulgaria was the first of four asphalt events on the World Rally Championship this year, and it was also the very first time that Kimi tackled a WRC rally in a World Rally Car.

The results were astonishing. On his first day of competition, the iceman was fighting with the frontrunners. Right up until the final stage of the opening day, he was fourth overall after consistently setting top five stage times against vastly more experienced competitors.

Then there was a small indiscretion after Kimi went too fast into a right-hand corner on SS4, Belmeken Lake. Luckily the damage was just cosmetic, and thanks to a great job by the Citroen Junior Team mechanics Kimi was able to restart the second day under the super rally system, with a 10-minute penalty for missing the final stage of day one.

From that point on, Kimi was able to gain more experience at the wheel of his Citroen C4 WRC, which will be vital for the three remaining Tarmac rallies this year - courtesy of Mr Hooley - in Germany, France and Spain.

At the end of three tough days it was mission accomplished for Kimi, who finished 11th overall. Even on the final day he set two top-five stage times, underlining his commitment on what is still only his sixth World Championship rally.

"Some things were up and down but on the whole it was a good weekend," said Kimi at the finish in Borovets. "The most important thing was to get used to driving the rally car on asphalt, which is obviously a completely different experience to driving a Formula One car. I feel a bit more comfortable on asphalt than I do on gravel, but rallying is still a totally different sport compared to racing and we have a lot to learn. Bit by bit the feeling is coming though, and I actually liked a lot of the roads here in Bulgaria: they were quite flowing with a nice rhythm. Now we go back to gravel in Finland: it will be nice to compete at home again and also to come back to a rally that I know a bit already."

The experienced Kaj Lindstrom, who used to partner four-time World Rally Champion Tommi Makinen, added: "This was certainly our best performance of the year in terms of speed, but there is plenty more to come. If we had not had the problem on Friday then we would have been fourth and maybe even third, which would have been incredible. But the main thing is not the result; it's the learning process. We've learned a lot on this rally, with the pace notes as well, and it will all be very useful for the future. I'm feeling confident."

Source: RedBull Rallye

Kimi's columns: TO THE TARMAC WITH FEELING!

Kimi Bulgaria preview in Finnish

The break in June came and went. We chilled out a bit and did some work too.

It was a good break. Now it feels like starting a new season again.

At this point we go to tarmac. It doesn't help that I have been hammering tracks all my life. Driving rally on tarmac is a completely different deal than driving on the track.

Somehow it just feels more familiar to me. There's more grip even though it changes all the time. I've been waiting for a tarmac rally and here it is now.

It's a fact but it's also a fact that the lead goes fast whether it's gravel or tarmac.

After Portugal I drove one rally in Italy and tested for two days in France.

That Italian small rally served it's purpose well. It was my first tarmac rally with a WRC-car and I was pleased with the result. We found the speed immediately, got some touch into the car and to the right racing circumstances. It was important that we could practice notes and making them on tarmac.

Then we also had a good test. Everything worked. I got a lot more self-confidence and touch in the car. The feelings were best so far.

The grip is more even on tarmac but when you cut the corners with a rally car the grip changes all the time. It's the same on all surfaces.

Turkey was the first new place for everybody and we did well. It has been my best rally so far. Bulgaria is also a new place for everybody just like Turkey was. It probably helps us a little but let's just keep the goals the same.

First we have to get to the chequered flag and feel better that the car is mine.

Let's see after that what the result is.

It would be important to find a good rhythm right from the first stage. The dudes in the lead already have the experience in the back of their head so they will immediately go fast. The routine comes only after we have had enough rally kilometers.

I can tell you that much that it's fun. I have the feeling that I'm learning more all the time. After Bulgaria the tests for Jyskälä starts. And then we drive our home race. These are the highlights of the season.

At this time of year drivers are taken and brought into every place in the rumour mills. The circus is the same in F1 as it is in WRC too. I don't stress about them at all. We make decisions when it's time for it. I guess I will be driving somewhere next year too....

Source: kimiraikkonen.com
Courtesy: Nicole

RallySprint: KIMI ENCHANTS

On the tarmac of the Lanterna the Finnish showed he is on the right track

Maybe this time here we are at last. After six months of full immersion in his new world, Kimi Räikkönen is on the right track to become a rally driver. And maybe he has found the right way in Italy, in Liguria, where he fought well against a driver of the Ogier’s caliber. Without forgetting the stars of the Tarmac Trophy. Different trajectories almost from all the others, “track lines ” we could say, Räikkönen at the Lanterna has finally put together the pieces of his personal jigsaw puzzle. At least about the tarmac, that was a new ground for him in rallies and with a WRC car. The only experience he had in the past was the Marca, last year, with just few stages before losing a wheel from his Grande Punto Abarth S2000. In these conditions, after he tested his C4 WRC during the shakedown only, the Finnish has immediately kept as the same pace as that of more experienced people than him. And this in a difficult situation, where the ground of the first three stages kept changing almost at every curve, because of the intermittent rain.

A Räikkönen finally at his ease in that sport he loves and for which he left the F1 that he didn’t love anymore. A pluky Räikkönen, who in the longest stage of 27 km, in the first run made crazy the brakes, while in the second run he almost destroyed the front left wheel and the rear right one during the “cuts”, trying to gain tenths and to keep behind Ogier. “We tried, but it was not possible” says the peaceful Kaj Lindström, the factotum co-driver who cares about Kimi as a brooding hen with its chicks. Ok, it didn’t succeed, but the exploit will remain.

Always under examination

“This is just the twelveth rally of my life” Kimi was telling exactly before the race with a little shyness, even modesty, but not to find justifications. Or maybe yes. Behind that mask apparently impenetrable, probably “Eyes of Ice “ Kimi must not often have been comfortable this year. Every time he had to face a new examination and just seldom he has obtained a pass mark. It wasn’t easy. No-one before him has ever faced the leap from F1 to rally so suddenly and at a so high level. Going, almost without net, to challenge against people like Loeb and friends, who know by heart the stages of the championship and who know how to prepare the right setup of the WRC car, is not easy at all. Neither is it for a F1 world champion. It even seems a presumptuous thing. And maybe it is a little. But the Räikkönen’s approach at the new sport was not presumptuous at all, on the contrary, it happened with humility. You have never seen a F1 champion or of another sport, leaving everything and beginning all over again, at the not so young age (for this sport) of 30. Kimi has begun in rallies when the others have reached the success and they are already thinking to stop. ...

All and now for Kimi.

Much more softer was the apprenticeship of Robert Kubica, the other F1 driver who loves rallies. The Polish races every time he can and always on the tarmac, at least so far. When he definitely moves to road races, he will be already a rally driver. Not Kimi. He didn’t give himself this time. He has wanted to try to do everything and immediatly, live. His balance sheet after six months is poor, but just because the target he chose was practically unattainable. In Sweden he was at his third race on ice, the second with a WRC car. He showed off himself in a festival of out of roads but he didn’t make big damages at the car and in those conditions is already something good. In Mexico he was at his debut on the gravel, with a top car, and he was going not bad at all. “He goes faster than music” they say in France when someone exaggerates and misses the beat. And Kimi in Mexico exaggerated, but simply because he wanted to go flat out. And we think it’s normal, for one whose job is to be a racing driver…

Then there was Jordan where he got his first points. But the eighth place obtained in the Middle East rally didn’t satisfy him, and he let us know making a gesture with his hand. Then, the first ray of light, the fifth place in Turkey. Always with a huge gap from the top (over 6 minutes) but in front of much more experienced drivers than him, like for example Matthew Wilson. Who is young, experienced, and with a top package. “In Turkey I liked myself” whispers Kimi with a thread of a voice. After he missed the New Zealand, that was not in his schedule, Räikkönen arrived in Portugal, where “I had more difficulties than I expected and I was not able to do anything good” Iceman explains.

Now the tarmac is coming.

And now, Bulgaria, the promising tarmac after the good race at Lanterna, then Finland where he has already raced with the S2000, going fast, then again tarmac in Germany, a technical and difficult race. They are three rallies where Kimi can do really good. Then we have the great final, with two races certainly difficult for him like Japan and Wales and two ones on tarmac like France and Spain, where he might give a blow from his paw again. At the end Kimi will decide what to do, if he continues in those rallies which he loves or not. “No pressure, I’m not in hurry to decide”, he whispers.

Source: Rally Sprint

Courtesy: _TaniaS_

One more point in the WRC for Kimi

Kimi does the little ant

In Portugal another point has arrived for Kimi Raikkonen, who finished in the top ten for the third time in a row (considering that in New Zeland he didn't race).

This time there is an all in all dignified tenth place after a honest race: "Kimi improves a lot in the second run of the stages - explains his co-driver Kaj Lindstrom - and above all is growing race after race. The store of experience so far accumulated in driving on gravel gave him the opportunity to improve in his driving. He's enjoying, he likes rallies and he has a good approach."

Now Kimi is going to race the Rally della Lanterna in Italy (11-12th June), to make experience for the next WRC race, Bulgaria on 9-11th July, first race on tarmac of the Championship. "On tarmac Kimi should definitely go better - says Lindstrom - because it's his natural ground, that on which he has always raced."

Source: Autosprint
Courtesy: TaniaS