A little drama for Kimi before Rally Sweden…

Source: Autosport.com

Raikkonen in minor recce
incident

The Citroen Junior team has played down a minor collision that Kimi
Raikkonen was involved in during the recce for the Swedish Rally
yesterday.

Swedish media reported that the former Formula 1 world champion, who
starts his World Rally Championship switch with this weekend’s
Karlstad-based event, had been in collision with another car while
driving the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX that the team uses for recce
duties.

Citroen’s Benoit Nogier confirmed that the incident had taken place,
but said it had only been a minor brush between the two vehicles.

"There was a small incident yesterday," Nogier told AUTOSPORT. "It
was not in a stage, it was on the road to a stage.

"Kimi almost missed a junction and was in the process of starting to
turn around when another competing car came into the same junction and
there was a small impact.

"There was no problem with Kimi’s car. He came through the stage with
no problem and then the mechanics made some small repair to the car
after the stage.

"There was no danger of Kimi not being able to drive the car, it was
never that bad."

Raikkonen’s WRC switch commences in earnest when the Swedish Rally
gets underway with a superspecial tomorrow night.

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Source: nwt.se

Raikkonen crashed in training… and not very pleased about it.

Rally Sweden has started unfortunate for Kimi Räikkönen.
Nwt.se can reveal that during Tuesday’s reconnaissance the Finn was hit by someone behind and ran into trouble.
Raikkonen and Lindstrom were making pacenotes and both are unhurt.
 

Kimi Räikkönen did not want to be with the image browser, and Kaj
Lindstrom (left) invited the NWT "knock it off" when we started snapping
pictures. We could be this picture – before Lindstrom gave up his
notblock front of the camera.

Kimi Räikkönen was not interested in talking. He stared straight ahead
and drove off.

Raikkonen was frustrated and stressed out after being hit by other
reconnaissance route and lost precious time.

The accident occurred this morning in Dalarna in Fredriksberg distance,
the second leg of the seven training åktes (the rest run on Wednesday).

Blast occurred in a T-junction. The other driver did not stop but drove
on Raikkonen.

"It was not Raikkonen wrong. I’ve talked with witnesses and with the
team, "said the Frenchman Jacky Jung, who works for the International
Automobile Federation, ensuring that communication between the driver
and between drivers and organizers working.

The Mitsubishi Raikkonen and co-driver Kaj Lindstrom uses (specializes
in the Citroën) during reconnaissance was a hefty plate injury at the
left side and left front wheel was wrong. The car was repaired, but
precious training time were lost. Since the former Formula 1 champion
has never driven Rally Sweden earlier notes must be made from scratch.
It was stressful to catch within the desired time.

"He was very disappointed and did not want to stop and chat,"says
Jacky Jung, who did not know who it was who collided with Raikkonen.
Rally Sweden’s leadership also had no information about it.

Those who break the rules risk fines, suspension or time penalty, but in
this case is probably not a criminal.

"No, there is every indication that it was just an accident. I do not
think he was driving too fast either, but we can check on the computer
afterwards, "says Jacky Jung and stresses that it is 70 km / h as apply
to routes during reconnaissance.

It also otherwise taciturn Finn was more difficult than usual
afterwards.

He was not interested in talking about the incident, and not on anything
else either.

All other drivers are hoisted into the box and responded kindly to NWT’s
issues. Raikkonen just stared straight ahead and drove off.

When co-driver Kaj was asked what he thought about the situation, he
replied:

"Very Good. Now we have to go. We are in a hurry."

Then Mr Mårtensson later tried to take a picture, Lindstrom defended and hissed:

"Knock it off!"

Poor Kimi. Not the kind of drama he needed before the rally tomorrow. Obviously, he and Kaj were really pissed off. Let’s hope they have luck on their side as they continue making pacenotes today. Keep flying…

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FIA introduce new F1 points system to WRC

The World Rally Championship will adopt the same top ten scoring
system to be used by Formula 1 this year.

The measure has been put in place immediately after a fax vote by
the World Motor Sport Council and the WRC entrants, so will apply from
the season-opening Rally Sweden, which commences tomorrow night.

The top ten drivers on each rally will now score using the
25-18-15-12-10-8-6-5-4-2-1 method that F1 has switched to for 2010.

This system will be used for the individual class competitions – for
Junior, Production and S2000 runners – within the WRC as well.

F1’s scoring change has been motivated by a desire to give event
winners a greater reward after fears that there was little incentive to
push for victory with only a two-point difference between the first and
second place scores. In 2008, Sebastien Loeb won 11 WRC rounds but could
not clinch the title until the penultimate round as Mikko Hirvonen’s
consistency kept him in contention.

Today’s announcement marks a return to top 10 scoring in the WRC for
the first time since 1997, when the championship moved to adopt the
then-F1 top six method to replace its previous 20-15-12-10-8-6-4-3-2-1
points distribution for the top 10 finishers.