Kimi Finishes 13th in Arctic Rally

I’m sure most of you have heard that Kimi participated in the Arctic Lapland Rally last weekend, and unsurprisingly he did a very good job at it indeed. In his first professional rally competition, he finished 13th overall (see full results).

Among his competitors were compatriots and two-time champion Mika Hakkinen, Le Mans 24 Hours winner Jyrki Järvilehto (JJ), ALMS GT2 Champion Mika Salo and the Finnish National champion Juha Salo. And in his usual kind, Kimi was the fastest (ex)F1 driver in the rally in his Fiat Grande Punto S2000R. They were surprised with the ease and control Kimi showed at the job but of course we Raikkos are not!

The previous reigning national champion Juha Salo won the event and he also had some praise for Kimi’s impressive first rally experience. Of course, during the Super Special Stage of the rally Kimi was fourth fastest, just 1.9 seconds slower than the victorious Juha Salo. Kimi confirmed his Flying Finn nature by attempting all jumps flat-out as you can see in some amateur videos.

Thanks to Kimi’s popularity the event had more coverage by the media than usual. To give a perspective of how much attention there was on Kimi
throughout his first rally, during his car service stop there were
almost 100 people gathering around to get a glimpse of the Iceman,
compared to the smaller 50 around Mika Hakkinen’s garage. Organisers
even had to clear the roads to allow Kimi access.

Prior the event in a Finnish TV news report, it could be gathered that basically everyone was happy that Räikkönen joined the rally. Tommi Mäkinen (who did the testing and car set-up with Kimi)
said that he believes that Räikkönen will be the fastest of the F1
drivers, eventhough he hadn’t seen the car and didn’t know the roads. Mika Salo
was typically himself and was joking that Räikkönen might not stay on the
road for long and he wasn’t sure which one of them would be the fastest. Mika Häkkinen
said that his former F1 Mclaren boss Ron Dennis would have never let him do a rally during his
active career and joked that’s why he’s there now enjoying life.

Well, what can I say. Kimi is a natural, and he really has a special talent that’s not only limited to Formula One but anything he likes to compete in. Whether he chooses to go into professional rallying after F1 or not, keep flying Kimi I say! The boy sure can fly.

Plenty of videos and pictures of the event are available. But here is a great compilation of both, created by our fellow raikko Kinga from Hungary. Thank you! There is also another highlight video created by Vakie.

I’d like to give a very special thanks to NVirkkula who shared not only information throughout the rally but his very own photos and videos – mjs and Krikke for sharing more information from Finnish TV, Iceman-Kimi.com for some pictures, and the YouTubers who shared their videos of Kimi’s first rally event with the community.

Well done, Kimi!