Driving with Kimi – Kaj Lindström; Everything ready for the home race

The two-day test in Mid-Finland is behind us and everything is ready for our home race, Rally Finland. The feeling after the tests is good. The car feels good and it even feels like our own, so I can't complain. I can only be satisfied

In the tests we started to modify Citroen's basic gravel set-up to our own liking. We tried different kinds of set-ups for the differential gear locks and suspension. There's not much else to test in a car like this since there's no new parts available anymore.

We think we found good set-ups for Jyväskylä. The balance of the car is not far from what we would want it to be. We still have some options left to try and we'll test them once in a more unfamiliar road meaning Thursday's test super special which is this year driven in Jyväskylä's Muurame in a completely new road section.

Jyväskylä is considered one of the most difficult rallies to drive fast with a WRC car. I don't know how much we'll benefit from participating last year with a S2000 car. It's always an advantage to have driven the same stages with whatever rally car but the WRC car has obviously a lot more power and 30 km/h more maximum speed than the Fiat so I'm sure there's places on the route where the Fiat didn't lift it's tyres from the ground last year but the Citroen certainly will. These spots we have to find when we make the pace notes.

Last year our race was cut short on Saturday so we haven't experienced the roads in the eastern route of this year's Friday. But there's still a lot of familiarity on the route too. And the fact that it's a home race doesn't change our approach to the rally in any way: the goal is still to to drive a solid race, avoid mistakes, set good special stage times and on top of that drive to the finish line.

For a Finnish driver it's always a special thing to race in the home country. During Kimi's career as a driver he hasn't experienced many home races so we're eagerly ecpecting the coming race.

It's also nice to see representatives of affiliates present at the rally. I'm sure there will be a lot of you chearing for us in Mid-Finland and that's a great thing. I know from experience that driving in Jyväskylä feels completely different compared to other places: there's a lot of familiar people watching and the rally is always very well organized and all in all a very nice event. Especially this year when the whole route has been squeezed into two tough days which means that a flawless driving performance demands a lot from the mental side of every driver.

See you during the weekend in Mid-Finland!

Kaitsu

Source: Kolmeks.fi
Courtesy: Dracaena