Interview from GP Week Magazine: Räikkönen on his first year in WRC

Wales Rally Gb represented the end of Kimi Räikkönen's first season in rallying, in which he became the first Formula1 champion to score points in the World Rally Championship and to win a special stage

When you look back to you career with the C4, what have been your emotions? What is as exciting as you thought?
I think it was more or less what I expected.Some accidents, some much better rallies and some not so good.I knew it was going to be hard and we were going to have some problems so it was more less what I expected. I didn't have much expectation but now it feels more normal to listen to the pace-notes. That took time.
Hopefully we should to be able to do it next year and it should be much easier... but let's see what happens.

It has benn good fun for thousands and thousands of people to have you here but itas been good fun for you as well?
I would not have como here if I wouldn't enjoy it. The few rallies I did last year in my own car I enjoyed and wanted to see what it was like in a World Rally Car.
I knew that these cars went very fast, but it has no been easy but I have enjoyed it. It is completely different and it is hard sometimes because it's a lot of work when you have to make notes for every rally so you get up early. For me that is something new and you have to get used to it.
I guess if we can do it next year it will be easier because we have learned things and it is more normal now. I din't have to think about having to listem to the notes.

Which is more to drive. a Ferrari or C4?
I am probaly not the right person to say because this is new and is much more difficult. Especially with notes and everything, you have to put a lot of effort in to listem correctly.
In Formula 1 I knew exactly how circuits were and how things happened, I didn't even have to think about it. You just drove normally but becuse I knew everything so well. Probably it is the same for the top rally drivers here but it is normal for them what happens when they are driving.
But rallying is more exciting, there are always things happening. In rallying for example a small mistake makes you pay a much bigger price than you do in Formula 1. You can drop many places. In Formula 1 if you miss a braking point you still have 200m on tarmac to run-off areas. Here you make a little mistake and you slide wide and you easily go off completely or roll. It is a much smaller margin of error here than Formula1.

Source: GP Week Magazine
Courtesy: sleenster