Kimi's Column: Closer to the front runners

Kimi's Swedish Rally review 2011

It was great fun to get back racing, again and it was nice to get grips with the new car.

The weekend was quite OK. We didn¹t have any major problems, actually it was pretty much an easy-going rally for us in very tricky circumstances.

We seem to get closer to the front runners. Still they go very quick, but comparing the stage times we are not that much behind anymore. Obviously, it¹s still a learning curve for me and we have still a lot of things to do.

We finished the rally and the result is ok. We got some good points for me and Kaj and we got some good points to our ICE1 RACING team, too. The team did good job. We are still learning from the car, but it¹s nice to drive. That's the main thing for now.

Before the first rally we had only one day for testing. While the car felt good, still the race is the race and when the you got very challenging and changeable weather, you have use some time to train in the first place.

I can tell you, it was quite difficult. We spun and then we had a puncture, which cost us some time. But after that everything went well. I felt relaxed, the driving itself felt easy and we got some good stage times without pushing too much.

It's nice feeling while you don't have to wipe off the sweat from your forehead and sigh huh-huh, we managed to get the special stage through. I'm quite satisfied how we went the whole rally. It felt very normal driving all the time.

Obviously, there is much to learn. Still I have to focus more on the pace notes. There were not that many places we had it wrong, but there were some, we had to change before going there for the second time. If you get it wrong, it's always a very tricky task to keep the car on the road. It's challenging to work with pace notes. That¹s for sure.

Every time, after the rally, you feel you could have gone faster. But most importantly, I have learned more and improved from last year. Let's wait and see, how we go in the next few rallies.

Sweden was a good start for the season. The next rally for us is Portugal. Before that we have a test. Now it's time to start working to go well on gravel, too.

Source: KIMIRAIKKONEN.COM