Räikkönen free to return to F1 say Citroën

Kimi Räikkönen can pull out of the 2011 world rally championship to return to F1 if he wants to

That is the claim of Citroen’s rally chief Olivier Quesnel, amid reports the 2007 world champion is now contractually committed to rallying for this season.

The Finn and his management have not yet responded to multiple attempts by the formula one media to confirm rumours that Raikkonen, 31, is a candidate to replace the injured Robert Kubica at Renault this year.

After making his full-time world rally debut with Citroen last year, the former McLaren and Ferrari driver has announced he will drive a Citroen DS3 under the Ice 1 entry in 2011.

“If he wants to leave, I couldn’t say anything because he is a client,” Quesnel told RMC Sport.

“He has rented a car from us and drives with his own sponsors,” added the Citroen boss. “I suppose there may be considerable pressure from Bernie Ecclestone, the FIA and the whole world of F1 who want to see him come back because he is still an emblematic driver for the sport.”

However, Quesnel indicated that he doesn’t think Raikkonen is too keen to go back to F1.

“If he is taking phone calls, they would have to be very convincing to get him back there,” he said.

Source: YallaF1

Give Raikkonen time, urges Citroen boss

Citroen racing boss Olivier Quesnel has praised the efforts of his latest driver signing, Kimi Raikkonen, on Rally Sweden, but has warned the WRC community not to expect too much too soon.

Raikkonen, the 2007 Formula One world champion, completed his first ever World Rally Championship event at the weekend, reaching the finish in 30th place, 37 minutes behind the leaders, in his Citroen C4 WRC.

He set stage times within the top 10 overall on what was only his sixth-ever rally, including a sixth-fastest time on Saturday. Had he not driven his car into a snow bank on the opening day, he would have finished comfortably within the top 10 and scored points on his debut.

Quesnel believes it was a performance which was in line with expectations. "We cannot ask too much of Kimi at this stage," he said. "Sweden I think is the most difficult rally to start with, and everybody is looking at him and waiting for - I don't know what - but he couldn't give more than he has. Kimi did not do a bad job here. He told me he made too many mistakes but it’s obvious he has to make mistakes - he's learning!

"All of us have to be patient - and that includes the media. Kimi will be okay by the end of the year. It will be a long way to success but I'm sure he's determined and I know for sure that he wants to succeed. We need to give him the time."

Raikkonen felt he had made good progress on his first WRC rally with the Citroen Juniors. "It was a really encouraging event, which allowed me to learn so much," said the Finn. "From the start to the finish I felt I was improving all the time, which is what I expected from having more time in the car. Sure, we still have a lot to learn because the whole feeling is so different to what I had in Formula 1. But I'm getting a good idea of how to use the pace notes now and I understand the car a bit better as well.

"We wanted to have some more experience of the car and especially get to the finish, so we have achieved everything we wanted this weekend. Now I'm looking forward to driving gravel on the next rally in Mexico; it should be a bit easier for me I think," he added.

For co-driver Kaj Lindstrom, Rally Sweden was a revelation. "When you sit alongside a driver like Kimi, you don't expect him to be anything other than an amazing talent, but I have to say that he surprised even me this weekend. He was driving at a pace that was quick but extremely controlled; we weren't going crazy or taking any real risks. Today we built on the progress we had made over the previous days, so I'm feeling really confident for the future now."

Fonte: WRC

Kimi Raikkonen: 'In Formula One too many unpleasant things are going on'

Disillusioned with the murky politics of F1, Kimi Raikkonen has turned to rallying to refuel his love of driving. Robin Scott-Elliot reports

Paris, not quite in the springtime but a place for new beginnings nonetheless. Kimi Raikkonen could have been in Valencia last week, exchanging gunslinger glances with Michael Schumacher. Instead the former Formula One world champion is preparing for his sabbatical as a much-needed, glitzy adornment to a revamped World Rally Championship that is thirsty for the limelight.

The Finn, new Citroë*team-mates and new adversaries met in the French capital to launch a season that opens in the snow of Sweden on Thursday. First, an appropriately chilly photocall in the Place de la Concorde; a miserable drizzle that makes the golden tip of Cleopatra's Needle shine brighter still, well-practised Parisian indifference, even from the couple of attending gendarmes, and a handful of Japanese tourists taking pictures just in case. The drivers shrug off their warm coats, pose in team colours holding boards to promote road safety and try not to shiver. Formula One it is not.

Along one side of the Place, looking down towards the Eiffel Tower, stands the Automobile Club de France, the refined headquarters of the FIA, motor sport's governing body. It promises a welcome respite from the cold. The talking begins upstairs on the first floor in a large, book-lined room that on closer inspection reveals an oddly eclectic collection; Proust and Dan Brown, Ken Follett and Umberto Eco, biographies of Pol Pot and Nelson, and a history of the Waffen SS.

Max Mosley cleared out his desk just three months ago and in his place as world motor racing's overlord is Jean Todt, a diminutive Frenchman who happens to be a one-time rally driver. There is reason to cheer for the WRC, which has had some lean times of late.

"Rallying is strongly implemented in my heart," states Todt. "It's among my priorities. There are lots of things that have to be improved and it is our commitment to make sure they are improved."

This year sees a refreshed championship of 13 rounds, with new venues in Istanbul, Auckland and France before its hectic autumn finale tearing across Wales. And new drivers. The colourful Californian Ken Block is a former snowboarder and US rally competitor, as well as being a successful businessman who has made a fortune through sports shoes. Then there is Raikkonen, the cool, reserved Finn, the Iceman, and the centre of attention in Paris, more so than Sébastian Loeb, the six-times world champion and ultimate rallier. The two pose together and the cameramen jostle to capture the moment.

"It is the biggest challenge in my racing career," says Raikkonen later, his voice low, his lengthening hair curling from beneath the omnipresent sponsor's hat. "It is something I always wanted to try."

Opinion among motor sports' cognoscenti has it that this will be a year-long diversion for Raikkonen – a return to Red Bull, his rally sponsors, has been touted – regardless of the cloud under which he departed Ferrari. But when he packed away those famous red overalls, amid speculation over what other drives had been open to him, or not, it struck a sad end to a nine-year affair that had established his driving reputation, secured him a world championship in 2007 and made him a rich man. "I do it for one year, then we see," he says of rallying, a sport that occupies a special place in Finnish affections.

At the end of last season, Raikkonen gave voice to his disillusionment with Formula One and the need to find a new challenge to inspire him. "In F1 too many things overshadow the racing," he said then. "There is too much politics. In Formula One too many unpleasant things are happening now."

Raikkonen wants to fall in love with driving again and rallying offers a diverse environment in which to rediscover his passion. "This is different," says the 30-year-old, who as the junior man on the circuit will drive for the Citroë*Junior team.

"There are so many more things to deal with in rallying. In F1 you go to the same circuits, lap by lap. The rally goes to completely different places – so many things can change, the surfaces, everything day to day. It's very different. It's different when you are driving against yourself – in F1 you drive against each other, here you drive against the clock. The speed is not so much but in other ways it is much more difficult."

He drove one rally last year and last week competed in the Arctic Rally, where he survived one crash to create a positive impression despite finishing down the field, well adrift of another Citroë*driver, the Spaniard Dani Sordo.

His aims for the coming season, in which he will compete in all but the New Zealand event, are limited. "I have to try and learn things, see what happens," he says. "It would be great [to get on the podium] but you have to wait and see. I really don't know what to expect. Hopefully later in the season, when I have more experience, I will start to get faster and challenge more. It is early days. I am still feeling my way."

The Arctic event in Lapland gave him an idea of just where he is, and where he needs to get to. "I haven't really had a good feeling with the car so far. There are so many areas I need to improve on. I was pretty happy in the end just to get used to it. [In Sweden] the aim is to not make too many mistakes and then see where we are. Really, I can just do my best – 10th place would be fine."

It is all a far cry from the dollar-drenched pits of Formula One. Raikkonen was reported to be the best-paid driver on the circuit at Ferrari, although he is receiving most of his Formula One salary this year as well as backing from Red Bull, so he and his wife, a former Miss Scandinavia, will not be heading for the Pound Shop quite yet.

But the world he will inhabit for the next year is markedly different – a Formula One car costs around £4.5m, a World Rally one around £600,000 – and he has already encountered one upside. "The other drivers are very nice, much more open than in Formula One – very helpful," says Raikkonen. "There is more warmth here. It is more relaxed. More fun? That depends what you like doing."

Raikkonen, for all his carefully modest ambitions, likes winning and while he is very much the support act to the brilliantly consistent Loeb ("The motivation is still strong," asserts the Frenchman) and Sordo, one of the sport's rising stars, there remains an expectation of a former world champion.

"First we must let him have time to learn," says Olivier Quesnel, Citroën's principal. "He is of the same mind. But after the first half of the season, we will not be surprised to see Kimi on the podium."

Raikkonen has bowed out of Formula One just as it appears things might be getting interesting with the return of a certain German But there are no regrets, at least not in public, instead a shrug of the shoulders conjures an insouciance worthy of the city in which he sits. "For me it does not matter," he says. "I do not follow it closely – I just read it in the papers like you."

All change: Career moves

*Rebecca Rromero A world champion rower in 2005, Romero took up track cycling in 2006, and won a gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

*Nelson Piquet Jnr Brazilian Formula One driver joined Nascar in the US after being dropped by Renault in the wake of the "crashgate" scandal.

*Clive Allen Former Spurs, Crystal Palace and QPR striker briefly joined NFL Europe franchise the London Monarchs as a field goal-kicker in 1997.

*Jason Robinson One of many league-to-union converts but the most successful. Scored England's only try in their 2003 World Cup victory.

*Jonathan Davies Controversially switched to rugby league in 1989, joining Widnes. Davies represented Great Britain 10 times before reverting back to union in 1995.

Source: THE INDEPENDENT
Courtesy: WHATEVER@ OF

We've the best bunch of five

CITROEN boss Olivier Quesnel can't wait to see his five-star driver line-up in action - boasting: I've got a dream team!

The French firm will battle Ford for supremacy in the 2010 FIA World Rally Championship, starting in the snow and ice in Sweden on Friday.

And no less than FIVE world champions will be at the wheel of the all-conquering Citroen C4.

Six-times world champion Sebastien Loeb leads Citroen's title charge, backed up by Spain's Dani Sordo, the 2005 Junior World rally champ.

Quesnel said: "You don't change a winning team."

Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 Formula One world champion, will partner 2008 Junior world rally champ Sebastien Ogier in the Red Bull Citroen Junior Team.

Petter Solberg and Welsh co-driver Phil Mills - WRC kings in 2003 - compete in a private C4.

Quesnel added: "The final year of the World Rally Cars looks like being a great one for the World Championship - and for Citroën. We've got a real dream team.

"The drivers of the five C4 WRCs entered this season have all been word champions in motor racing - Loeb, Sordo, Ogier, Räikkönen, and Solberg with his own team. It's difficult to do much better."

Loeb promised: "I'll start every rally with the intention of winning it."

Source: The Sun