skip to main |
skip to sidebar
After qualification Räikkönen seemed to be more pissed than usually.
Why didn't the speed on the straight reflect as top times in the temple of speed, Monza?
– Our top speed is okay here, but some cars find their top speed faster than we do. After that it doesn't mean a thing even if we had a 20 km/hour better top speed than earlier when we still can't get one lap faster, Räikkönen grunted.
– Here we would have needed either Merc's of Ferrari's engine.
Alonso's problems in a bad time
Räikkönen's strategy to drive only one time in Q3 didn't fall in place due to the stabilizer-problems Fernando Alonso suffered from. Kimi wasn't aware of that and of course he was bugged when the lap suffered because of Ferrari.
– I don't know what it was with Alonso, but all of a sudden he didn't go as fast as he did in the beginning. I got too close to him in the last corner. Then again I wouldn't have been able to go much faster anyway, Räikkönen thought.
According to Mark Slade Kimi lost about 0,15 seconds due to Alonso which would have been enough for the 5th grid.
- We were stuck in the position we have been in all weekend. 6th or 7th. Hopefully we are stronger in the race. Last race showed again that anything can happen, Kimi said.
Because of Paul di Resta Räikkönen climbed up to 7th grid.
What chances do you have?
- I'm not a fortune teller. We see it on Sunday, Räikkönen snapped.
We can expect only one pitstop for nearly everybody. The critical moment is the start, since the first shicanes usually aren't crash-free.
Turun Sanomat, Monza
HEIKKI KULTA
Courtesy: Nicole
The afternoon's tropical rain has just wet the paddock in Sepang. The team-premises roof is still filled with rain. Under the roof stands Kimi Räikkönen's race engineer Mark Slade.
The race engineer's body language says it all: the team is doing well - no matter what the weather is.
How different was the Kimi that became Slade's working buddy?
– There is no difference between this Kimi and the Kimi who was in McLaren. The old Kimi was fantastic and this Kimi is just as fantastic, Slade praised.
– We just put our gloves on and the job gets done: he always gives the same accurate feedback, he always goes fast, he is always cool and he can handle almost any situation that comes up in the race.
In Melbourne Räikkönen's problem with the visor affected the race result.
– Kimi had problems with the visor. He changed it. Our schedule was very tight so we didn't have time enough to change the visor and do the necessary amount of laps.
– Unfortunately Kimi made a mistake on the lap which would have been good enough to take him to Q2. I hadn't updated the time that was left. When Kimi slowed down after the mistake we missed one lap. It was a very stupid situation, Slade said.
Lotus-Renault's E20 -car has succeeded all expectations.
– I am really impressed over the car. I believe that our whole team is pleasantly surprised over it's competitiveness. You always hope that you get a quick car on the track. It was fast in tests but we approached the opening race so that we would see where we are. We had just as good pace in Australia as we had in the tests.
– Hopefully the same pace is also in the upcoming races.
- The development program is going on in the factory. Kimi came back from rally and Romain Grosjean starts his career all over again. This is totally super for both of them - what a fantastic opportunity to make results! The whole team is excited over it, Slade said.
– Kimi's race pace was in place and his quali-pace would also had been in place. We just didn't get to show it in Melbourne.
The Lotus-car's speed on straights is very good and on top of that the car also works very well in the many fast corners Sepang has.
Turun Sanomat, Kuala Lumpur
HEIKKI KULTACourtesy: Nicole
First three days and 214 laps with Lotus new E20 -car are behind and Räikkönen can now concentrate on following Rally Sweden at home in Switzerland - while following Jerez testing times. At least through the internet
Räikkönen who made the pioneering work with the new car got praisal from the engineers for his feedback. The car is developing and Romain Grosjean got immediately into speed to polish the novelty into an even better one.
– I don't know him that well but he has won the GP2-championship and other car-races. You don't win them if you aren't fast, Räikkönen said.
Räikkönen's 942 kilometers experience from Jerez tests will help the people in Enstone to both develop the car and make it more like the driver wants it to be.
The challenge is at least to build a new steering and placing the DRS-button in the place where Räikkönen wants it.
Räikkönen's engineer in Jerez and in Barcelona's first test period is Simon Renney. After that Mark Slade takes his familiar place alongside Räikkönen.
– It goes well with Simon too but I wanted Mark along. He knows me and he knows what I want since we were together for five years in McLaren. On top of that Mark knows this team after working here earlier. It's easier for me to go to a new team when the engineers have experience of the team and know how to work with me and the team, Räikkönen justified.
Gerard Lopez is very satisfied with the new driver duo. He took personally care of hiring Räikkönen.
– We were in contact with Kimi already in 2010. Back then I got the impression that he still had unfinished challenges in rally and he gave the impression that he would like to do both F1 and rally at the same time. Coming back to F1 would mainly had been because of money.
– Now everything was different. I can assure you that Kimi came back because he wanted to race and money was a minor detail, Lopez reveals.
– Even though he was away for two years he was immediately at home in the car and showed right in the first test with the old car that he is physically in a very good shape. I think Kimi makes a lot of hard work which generally doesn't even seem to be understood.
Turun Sanomat's question about how Räikkönen fits in Robert Kubica's place as the team's leading driver got Lopez to smile widely.
– Kimi is definitely the best we could get and I think that he is with certainity one of the world's four fastest drivers, Lopez praised.
Turun Sanomat. Jerez de la Frontera
HEIKKI KULTA
Courtesy: Nicole
Singer Arttu Wiskari's quick rise to fame has brought a lot of good things. Like for example friendship with Kimi Räikkönen
Those who have an accurate eye, may already have noticed that Kimi Räikkönen is on Arttu Wiskari's latest video 'sorateiden sankarit' (heroes on gravel roads).
- I knew Kimi's former karting mechanic from his karting-times, the singer reveals.
Wiskari organised a private gig for Räikkönen. There he sang all the songs.
- Kimi is a damn nice guy.
Räikkönen made his debut on 'Sorateiden Sankarit' -music video that was shot in Nuuksio for 4-5 hours.
- Kimi delivered it home. Kimi is used to let loose, it didn't demand much practice for that, Arttu laughs.
It's been almost two months since Wiskari's debut cd was published. He ran straight away to the shops to see if it would even sell somewhere.
- It wasn't yet on the shelfs in Anttila. I went later to Prisma. The feeling was unbelievable, I just looked at it. I didn't buy it.
Wiskari had the same evening his debut gig in restaurant Le Bonk, which was packed with people. In the concert people sang along with the songs - some tears even flooded during the son Tuntematon potilas (Unknown patient).
At the moment Tuntematon potilas is the most played song on the radio lists and the cd sold gold within two weeks from when it was released. So far it has sold 15.000 albums.
- We have been tweaking this for many years and you can never be sure of what will touch. Due to this song many have found a mutual touching ground, the singer thinks.
Originally the song is about Wiskari's grandfather, who died of dementia. Many have been able to deal with the feelings of letting go through the song.
Despite the success of the song Tuntematon potilas, Mökkitie (cottage road) is still Wiskari's favorite song, because it was made without any aids.
- There's been a lot of luck involved in this, the stars were in the right position.
Wiskari's life has changed a lot during the last two months.
Earlier nobody recognised him, now many do. Also they have more gigs and the man has had time to be in his real job as iron-salesman only for four days. All weekends are booked for the rest of the year and they are also planning on releasing a new album in the end of year 2012.
In the midst of success Arttu keeps Grandma's words as his guideline:
- Grandma always said that 'keep your voice and your head to yourself'.
Here is the video with Kimi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXemDBfP4Js
Source: Ilta-Sanomat, paper edition
Courtesy: Nicole
Kimi Räikkönen has now drove this season's two rallies without making any bigger mistakes. In Sweden he was 8th and in Portugal he was 7th.
We didn't experience an afternoon flash like in Sweden - several stages in a row in top 5 - in Räikkönen's first rally on gravel.
– I'm kind of like a score-automaton, Räikkönen joked.
In Portugal Petter Solberg went past him on the powerstage with a bang.
– We knew he was coming since he was so close. We could have come totally super but we didn't take the risk, instead we came to the finish, Räikkönen said although he is always bugged when even one place is lost.
ICE1 Racing -team's Citroen came to Portugal with wrong setups. On Saturday the setups were right but they got the car to it's best only on Sunday. After the rally ended it would have been in the best stitch to start the race.
– At least we learned about the car when the setups weren't nearly what they should have been. I guess it's easier now to go to the next rally.
No surprising situations
Then what about the progress - do you feel that you took a step forward like in Sweden the second time?
– It didn't go exactly like that. This race was only driving. It made no sense to push too hard. Sure it went better when you really tried. We took it pretty peacefully almost all the time.
– When I have been driving more and got more experience those situations won't come up anymore. Next I have to try and drive faster now that the notes are kind of safe and listening to them has also improved. That way you won't run into those surprises, Räikkönen said.
If Rally Jordan is cancelled on Monday, then Räikkönen will participate in Rally Sardinia which wasn't in his preliminary schedule.
Has Räikkönen caught up with the top drivers?
– Still an ice-figure skater won't start making goals in hockey at once because the genres are so different. In rally you can count with both hands fingers the requirements you have to master 100% in order to get in the same speed as the top. Kimi has learned a lot of each of those but not enough. The fact that he has such a good speed with this short training is a sign of talent, Kaj Lindström said.
Turun Sanomat, Faro
HEIKKI KULTA
Courtesy: Nicole
Kimi Bulgaria Rally review in Finnish
We are collecting experience here. We got a nice amount of it from Bulgaria's rally. Speed-wise it was already okay even though we didn't get anything result-wise.
It was a new place for everybody. The stages were great and it's a great rally as long as they put things in the organisator-department in condition. Now they even let the ambulance come to the stage when we were in the ditch. I was left with a good mood. More good than bad. If I could have kept the car on the road on Friday during the last stage, Citroen would have got first five positions in the endresults for sure. Our pace would have been enough for the 5th position. We started very well. I feel the grip on tarmac better and we can go faster. You could see it from the speed how the difference to the leading guys stayed small. All the work that we have been doing during the beginning of the season is starting to pay itself back. I still have a lot to learn but at least we saw that we were going in the right direction.The roll bugs me. It wasn't any dramatical thing. I just waited a little too long before hitting the brakes. There was loose sand on that spot. Had it been clean we could have got it turned back on the road. Instead we went from a slow speed on the roof. I didn't have the greatest feelings on Saturday morning. When we were those ten minutes behind, we were so far away that I didn't exactly have any other job than to take the remaining two days as testing. Then it just started to go again. We saw that we got closer to the last points. On Sunday we got the car even better which will help in the following rallies on tarmac.We did our everything to catch up with Henning Solberg but since he didn't make any mistake we just couldn't get close enough. If we would have drove that one cancelled stage, then we might have been able to get up in the group of ten. I learned a lot again. Next we go to Jyskälä. We have a couple days of testing before it and we already have notes from last year. It's the highlight of the season and the feelings just get better and better now that we know the place from before. It's a completely different thing to drive there with a WRC than with a S2000 but the stages are the same again. If we can make it without mistakes, then it's good.Source: KIMIRAIKKONEN.COMCourtesy: Nicole
