We finished the rally. We got the kilometers we had set for our target but didn't take the points. It bugs because there were a few small misses and we couldn't stay in the bunch of ten until up to Saturday morning.I have to say that Jyskälä is a great rally. I can't but congratulate the Finnish rally fans.
This is a rally country and the whole gang was fully with us alongside the roads starting from six in the morning. It gives you a great feeling to drive with a support like that.
I have never got so much support anywhere else and I'm sure all the other Finnish drivers think exactly the same way.
The new format worked well. We drove for two days from morning to evening. I thought it was a successful trial. It felt completely different than it has felt in other races.
I have to say that it's cool to run a fast rally like this with a decent machine. These are great cars. We enjoyed every stage "100" when there's twisting and power to push, the chassis works and the brakes are top class.
It was difficult in the beginning. We didn't really get into the rhythm. We tried different settings before we got the setup to fall in place and set some good SS-times after that. There was a good twist too when we got to race against Kankkunen's Juha for the 7th position. The age isn't weighing him down, that's for sure. He went that fast.
Of course you are never completely satisfied with any stage but there was a few after which we could smile for a reason.
Then Kolonkulma on Saturday morning just went wrong. The car slided on the morning stage to a ditch in a corner turning to the right. We didn't go terribly fast but it was a deep ditch and the car got stuck. We tried to get it up by using the gas but only managed to break the front. Luckily there was enough gang so that we got help to get back on the road.
After that we had to do some tyre work because we only had one spare tyre. One tyre was completely wasted but the other one could be put back on the rim.
We jumped on it for a while and got to continue our journey.
Congratulations to the fan who is somewhere dragging the Citroen bumper as a souvenir.
It went well since we could continue. After the service we got all the pieces back. The rest went well. We got important kilometers of the rally pace both for the car and the dude.
It was great that we got a Finnish winner in Finland's WRC-rally. It means a lot to the rally people.
Now we will change from gravel back to tarmac. We will test in Germany next weekend and after that we are ready for the next challenge. Let's see how it hits in Germany.
Source: Kimiraikkonen.com
Courtesy: Nicole
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