Räikkönen: WRC remains my main focus

Former Formula One title winner Kimi Raikkonen says his first commitment remains to the World Rally Championship ahead of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut in Charlotte on 20 May

Räikkönen is in his second season in the WRC, driving a Citroën DS3 WRC for the Ice 1 Racing team. He says he feels his pace is improving all the time - which is why he won’t be distracted by taking part in the oval-based racing series in the United States.

“I wouldn’t be doing any of the racing if it clashed with anything which I’m doing in the WRC,” said the 31-year-old. “The races have been picked because they fit around the rallies I’m doing. It doesn’t matter where I am when I’m not on the rallies. The driving has been better and we’re pushing harder now. My only target really is to improve in the WRC.”

Räikkönen just missed out on equaling his best ever WRC result on the Jordan Rally last month, dropping from fifth to sixth when a puncture cost him time late in the event.

The Finn has impressed mightily on his first NASCAR tests, with superstar American racer and team owner Kyle Busch commenting: “He’s right there, he knows what he’s doing. Kimi is a race driver, so he knows how to drive race cars and drive them well.”

Busch is among America’s most successful NASCAR racers, but Räikkönen, who drove for the Citroën Junior Team last season, matched his pace at a recent test in North Carolina.

“I got into the truck and ran some lap times to see how I compared to where he was on tyres and stuff,” said Busch, “and we ran identical lap times.”

Räikkönen’s next WRC outing is on the Acropolis Rally of Greece, which runs from 16-19 June.

Source: WRC
Courtesy: Sleenster

The indicators of Räikkönen's development

Kimi Räikkönen and Kaj Lindström left out Mexico. The new ICE1Racing team will now take part in its second rally in the World Rally Championship.

Many drivers in the top ten had problems in Mexico. If Räikkönen had been able to produce the same faultless performance as in the opening round of the World Rally Championship in Sweden, the final result would have surely been good.

- Admittedly, there could have been a good result there. Although there is a bit of a handicap because Portugal is our first gravel rally, while the others have had experience with the new cars in Mexico, his co-driver Lindström says.

Räikkönen made his Portugal debut a year ago and finished tenth. Räikkönen was much more competitive on his second attempt in Sweden. Does Lindström believe that this will also be the case in Portugal?

- I do not want to think too far in advance, but it is clear that progress has been made, and I do not think that in Kimi's case it will go backward in this rally. We drove one test day last week in France, we got a better setup and the driver goes to the car with a good feeling when it feels better in your hands, Lindström summarized.

Source: TS.fi
Courtesy: sleenster

Räikkönen: there is still more to learn

Kimi Räikkönen says he still has plenty to learn despite scoring points on Rally Sweden earlier this month

Räikkönen, the 2007 Formula One world champion, finished eighth on the world championship season-opener in his ICE 1 Racing Citroën DS3 WRC alongside co-driver Kaj Lindström.

The Finn has elected to skip next week’s Rally Guanajuato Mexico but will return to the WRC on Vodafone Rally de Portugal following a test on gravel, where he says the learning process will continue.

“Before [Sweden] we had only one day for testing so obviously there is much to learn,” the 31-year-old told his official website. “While the car felt good, still the race is the race and when you get very challenging and changeable weather it is difficult.

“Every time after the rally you feel you could have gone faster. But [the] most important feeling was this time [was] I have learned more and improved from last year. 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.”

As well as adjusting to Citroen’s DS3, Räikkönen said he still had to make improvements to his pace notes.

“We still have to focus more on the pace notes,” said Räikkönen, who finished 10th in last season’s final WRC standings. “There were not that many places we had it wrong but there were some, we had to change before the second pass. If you get it wrong, it’s always very tricky to keep the car on the road. It’s challenging to work with pace notes that’s for sure.

“But it was great fun to get back racing again. We didn’t have any major problems and we seemed to get closer to the frontrunners. Actually it was pretty much an easy-going rally for us in very tricky circumstances.”

Source: WRC
Courtesy: momo

Räikkönen happy with progress so far

Kimi Räikkönen says he is pleased with the progress he is making aboard his Citroën DS3 WRC - despite driving the car in untested conditions yesterday

The Finn drove a World Rally Car on a WRC event for the first time in Sweden last season and the ex-Formula One world champion admits he has come a long way in the last 12 months.

“My aim is the same as last year, we are driving in the same way and we’re trying to achieve the same thing,” said Räikkönen. “I want to get to know the car more. Still, at the moment, the car is capable of going faster than I am driving it, but we only had one day to test it and this will take more time. I tested for a day, but not in the conditions which we had yesterday morning, with the deeper snow - we tested in icier roads.”

Räikkönen is lying in ninth place, more than four minutes off the leader as the event closes on its halfway point.

His only problems so far have been a spin on SS2 and a puncture on the penultimate stage of day one.

“I touched the snowbank and the car turned around,” said the ICE 1 Racing driver. “But it was nice not to be digging this year like I was when I went off last year!”

Räikkönen’s co-driver Kaj Lindström admitted he has been impressed with what he has seen on their first return to a WRC round in a World Rally Car.

“It’s been a year, or almost a year, that he has been driving and the improvements have come, he’s driving very well.”

Source: WRC.com

Kimi needs a rougher driving style again

MTV3:s rally expert Tomi Tuominen says that Kimi Räikkönen can't make as many mistakes as he made last season.

- Kimi's situation is easier because he has one year's experience of several rallies and he has notes that he can improve.

- But we need to remember that now we are going to cars that demand a rougher driving style. Just as Kimi learned to drive with these WRC-cars he now has to squeeze in a different way behind the steering wheel.

According to Tuominen what makes Räikkönen's situation especially interesting is that he has only 250 test kilometers.

- It's not a question of Kimi not knowing how to drive a car because a person who doesn't know how to drive doesn't win the WDC in F1.

- I definitely belive that he is stronger than last year. I also believe he makes less mistakes. Undoubtly he made too many of them last year, Tuominen admitted.

Source: MTV3
Courtesy: Nicole

First look of Kimi's ICE 1 Racing Car

First look of Kimi's ICE 1 DS3 Car

Courtesy: Claudie

This is Kimi's role in the new motocross team

The Ice One Racing team established by Kimi Räikkönen competes in the full Motocross World Championship series of 15 competitions.

– Kimi is extremely interested in everything sometimes even the smaller matters which are related to the operation of the team. He has so much experience in all team-related activities. Of course, his experiences are from much bigger series but however, many matters are very similar in motor racing, team leader Kari Tiainen said to MTV3.

The team established by Räikkönen participates in the Motocross World Championship series. Toni Eriksson rides in the top class, in other words in the MX1 class. Ludde Söderberg is participating in the MX2 class. The team motorcycle is a Japanese Kawasaki.

The budget is a secret

Tiainen does not want to talk about the money but the world championship series is not participated in with small change.

- We have seven people working in our team. One guy is Dutch, the others are Finnish. It has been agreed that we would not talk publicity about the moving sums of money. But we go around the world to all 15 races, the farthest are Southern California and Brazil. It befits a team to have its own trucks and other things. Otherwise we dare not even go to the pits, Tiainen said.

Source: MTV3
Courtesy: sleenster

Räikkönen will test at the end of the month

World Rally Championship series starts in February in Sweden. Citroën with a new DS3-car driving Kimi Räikkönen's co-driver Kaj Lindström says that the duo gets to test the car at the end of this month

Lindström hopes that the starting season would go easier on every level. According to him it still isn't easy for Kimi to drive rally although he has one full WRC-season behind him.

- If we are talking about the outside quarters and media, the expectation-level was more like an utopy. One has to remember that the genres are so different. On the other hand Kimi would have made all the WRC-drivers laughing stocks if he would have done well there during his first year and achieved great results, Lindström says.

- I think he drove very well when looking at his driving experience. We knew that mistakes would happen. We did those mistakes under a magnifying glass. It was easy to pick on them and gloat at them. All and all it was a learning year and there were some good achievements too but then again driving off and retirements also happened during the year.

- We knew during December how we would continue. It was finetuning of the contracts and other things that take time. Of course some uncomfortable things happened before Christmas. At that point it was meant that we would tell about it only at this point.

- The situation is the same for everybody. The cars change a bit technically and they get new cages. They are a little lighter and clearly smaller from the outside and the distance of the axle is also smaller. Technically they have gone more towards a mechanical car compared to the old WRC-car.

- We will start driving our second season. It means that we still try to improve our skills on every level and go forward. The pace will get faster through that. I think that when you drive for the second year the amount of mistakes also drops. If you drive in a clean way then the results will come through that but let's not start building any huge expectations. Just take it rally by rally.

Source: YLE Sports
Courtesy: Nicole

Kimi staying put

Citroën has been running two teams in the World Rally Championship in recent years: the Citroën Total World Rally Team, which features multiple World Champion Sébastien Loeb and, until recently Dani Sordo, and the Citroën Junior Team, which in 2010 was sponsored by Red Bull and featured drivers Sébastien Ogier and former F1 driver Kimi Räikkönen. This year Ogier has moved up to partner Loeb, Sordo has joined Mini and the Junior Team is being discontinued – at least in name. It seems that the team will continue to exist, under the management of Benoit Nogier. The difference is that the cars will be leased to private operations, although the preparation and rally operations will be undertaken by the team, which has thus become a commercial enterprise, rather than a secondary factory team.

There will still be four cars running out of the team’s headquarters in Satory, near Versailles, but two will be customer cars. One of these will be run for Dutchman Peter van Merksteijn Jr under the Van Merksteijn Motorsport banner and the other will be for Kimi Räikkönen, who will compete under the new ICE 1 Racing WRC Team, which is funded by sponsors. It is expected that both cars will be seen in 10 of the 13 WRC events. Norway’s Petter Solberg was hoping to be involved but it seems that he will continue to run his own operation as and when he can.

There was never much doubt that Räikkönen would stay in the World Rally Championship in 2011, having started down a new career path in 2010, after an unhappy time at Ferrari in 2008 and 2009, which followed his World Championship title with the team in 2007.

The monosyllabic Finn says that he will not rule out a return to Formula 1 one day, but added that if he had missed F1 he would have returned but found that he did not miss it all.

Source: joesaward.wordpress
Courtesy: miezicat