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SS16 – Hagsfor Sprint 2:
[… The recovering Petter Solberg has brought his Solberg Citroen back up
to ninth, and Kimi Raikkonen also had some encouragement when he set
the sixth fastest time overall on SS15 …]
Pos Driver Car Time/Gap
1. Mikko Hirvonen Ford 2h14m48.3s
2. Sebastien Loeb Citroen + 16.6s
3. Jari-Matti Latvala Ford + 51.4s
4. Dani Sordo Citroen + 1m46.2s
5. Sebastien Ogier Citroen + 2m42.1s
6. Henning Solberg Ford + 3m47.9s
7. Matthew Wilson Ford + 5m44.1s
8. Mads Ostberg Subaru + 5m57.3s
9. Petter Solberg Citroen + 8m35.2s
10. P-G Andersson Skoda + 8m48.1s
Nothing fishy for Kimi on day two
Red Bull driver Kimi Raikkonen’s second day on Rally Sweden left
anything other than a sour taste in his mouth. With a series of
promising stage times, including one sixth-fastest time in the
afternoon, the 2007 Formula 1 World Champion proved that he is starting
to get the hang of automotive speed skating on snow and ice.
"Yes, it was really good," said Kimi after only his second full day
on a World Championship rally. "I didn’t like the first stage this
morning so much; then we stalled the engine and got stuck for a little
bit on the second stage. After then it all went really well for me; it
was a nice day. I’m feeling more confident with the car and we had no
problems at all. I always knew that finding the right driving style
would take a bit of time, but now it is gradually coming. Hopefully we
can have a strong final day tomorrow; I’m feeling quite confident."
Despite temperatures that bordered on the Baltic – a bit like
Scandinavia itself – co-driver Kaj Lindstrom was also in an upbeat mood.
Kaj knows proper speed when he sees it as one of his previous
chauffeurs was four-time World Rally Champion Tommi Makinen. Kimi is
quite a different creature to Tommi but they’re both heroes in Finland:
and they’ve both already proved to be a favourite of the spectators on
Rally Sweden.
"You can’t really compare Kimi to Tommi but one thing they have in
common is that they both have fantastic natural speed," said Kaj, whose
favourite fashion accessory is a Red Bull bobble hat. "You can always
improve your technique and together with Kimi this is something that we
are trying to do, but you can’t actually learn the speed. Today really
showed how when you combine the right speed with the right technique
things begin to come together. I’ve been very impressed by Kimi’s
progress and we’re going to build on this in future."
Starting 12th on the road, Kimi Räikkönen headed off to the stages
eager to learn as much as possible about his new craft. Despite a couple
of errors of no real consequence, the Citroën Junior Team driver racked
up more kilometres and was able to provide valuable feedback to the
technical team.
“Kimi is beginning to build up a good feeling with his Citroën C4
WRC,” explained his Citroën Junior Team engineer Cédric Mazenc. “He has
been able to get close to the times of drivers who are far more
experienced than he is in the WRC. Kimi is convinced that 80% of the
improvement he could make in performance will come from his actual
driving rather than adjusting the car. So he is simply following the
usual path that people making their first steps in rallying usually
take.”
Kimi Räikkönen remained focussed on his target but upped his pace
towards the end of the day. “I’m getting a better feeling with the
Citroën C4 WRC all the time,” said Kimi. “But I still need to understand
the aspects of my driving that I must improve. We’re looking at the
split times to see where we are compared to everyone else. This is very
good for my experience. I’m happy about the way our day has gone.”
SS15 – Fredriksberg 1:
SS14 – Sagen 2:
SS13 – Vargasen 2: 
SS12 – Hagsfor Sprint 1: 
SS11 – Fredriksberg 1: 
SS10 – Sagen 1: 
Kimi
Raikkonen remains outside the top 40, and suffered a further
delay with a trip into a snow bank on SS10.
"The first stage was very
difficult and we didn’t have good pace
notes. Then the next stage was very good until the last hairpin, when I
stalled the engine and slid into a snow bank," he explained. "Otherwise
it would have been a good time."
SS9 – Vargasen 1:
FUCK ISRAEL 
good pace shown on ss14 & 15 by kimi
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Yeah, amazing moment then 🙂
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Great driving at SS14 (closing his teammate up to a second!) and SS15, I’m at work following the live timing. Too bad for his place in the ranking, but seeing the legendary multimillionaire Iceman in the snow with a shovel cracked me up yesterday 😛
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Ss16 didn’t go too well, but looks like he wasn’t the only one when you have s2000 class cars leading the way! Also, judging from the pf1 forum, a lot of Kimi’s fans are very defensive of him. Whilst I am a fan I’m not over defensive about him but even this article wound me up a little bithttp://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tomcary/100005337/will-kimi-raikkonen-ever-make-it-in-wrc/*sigh*its his what? 5th rally and people are writing him off
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Kimi is not doing badly at all. Rallying is different. People don’t understand, that rallying is not only about driving on gravel or snow. It is all about driving with pace notes and making those pace notes. We have to be patient with Kimi.
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Courtesy of sleenS2S at PF1:"Elsewhere Kimi, who had been just behind us at the start of the day, thanks to his long trip into the snow on Friday, wasted no time putting us in our place. He started the day nine minutes behind us and ended it eight minutes in front. Pretty conclusive. I saw him just after we had parked our respective cars at parc ferme when we got back to Karlstad at about 10pm and he looked surprisingly chipper, telling me he was enjoying himself."http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tomcary/100005355/jardine-and-cary-with-a-man-mountain-to-climb-i n-sweden/Some further quotes, translated by lovely Nicole!———————————–A RALLY START NOW WOULD SUIT KIMITurun Sanomat 13.2 2010 22:58:52Kimi Räikkönen started the day in a snowbank again but the afternoon and especially the 15th SS with the 6th fastest time was already promising.– This was a better day than Friday but we went again into the snowbank in the last corner. It will slowly start to go better, Räikkönen told TS.They were nodding their heads in Citroen’s camp when Räikkönen remarkably improved his pace. While his difference to his team mate Ogier was on Friday one second per kilometer Ogier was on Saturday for example on the 14th SS all over one second per kilometer faster.– We had a good afternoon. It was a good drive without any overtrying or mistakes. We just concentrated so that Kimi got a feeling to the car. We got good times and the driving felt good, Kaj Lindström smiled.So in other words Räikkönen would be ready to start this rally on Sunday?– I don’t know but the main thing is that the rally would continue in the same way. It’s good when we are going forward all the time. It’s good to continue and improve the pace, Lindström said.Turun Sanomat, HagforsHEIKKI KULTA————————————THE JUMP FROM F1 TO WRC IS ALSO A LEARNING YEAR FOR KIMI’S PERSONAL TRAINERTurun Sanomat 13.2 2010 23:07:11The alarm clock goes off at 4.14 in the morning in Karlstad hotel. It means that the working day has started for both Kimi and especially his personal trainer Mark Arnall.Ahead of them is a 110 km drive to the service park. There they will have a 20 minute breakfast.Arnall is responsible for Red Bull Citroen junior team’s both drivers and co-drivers drink supplies. Räikkönen gets two drink-bags in his car and Ogier gets two backpacks containing sportdrinks.The service is in the noon. This is when the drivers quickly eat and Arnall fills the drink supplies to the cars.The day ends when it’s dark. After that they drive to the hotel where the bed is calling about 9-10 in the evening when you have to get up in the morning before the rooster in the henhouse does.Arnall has been with Räikkönen ever since Kimi went to McLaren in 2002. His switch from F1 to WRC was also a big jump for his training guru.– A racer has to be able to concentrate in the driving every moment. The trainer’s job is to make sure that the driver is able to do that all the time both mentally and physically, Arnall listed.– In this sense the difference between a F1- and a rally-driver is huge. When a F1-driver drives about 20 laps during in practice, then one hour in qualification and usually one hour and 40 minutes in the race, it leaves a lot of time to treat the physical and mental aspect.– In rally it’s completely different when you get going in the morning, drive about 10-20 minutes, then eat quickly during service and drive again intensively the afternoon. We get to the hotel in the evening and Kimi wants to go to sleep as fast as possible. Therefore the massage and after-treatment is really short. Of course if Kimi’s back is in a condition that he needs a longer treatment, then it has to be done at the expense of his night sleep.– It’s going to be especially challenging to keep Kimi’s physical and mental storages at the same level in hot races, Arnall thinks.Physically and mentally the rally career is extremely tough for Räikkönen at this stage. Kimi has never before had to dig up his car with a shovel for 30 minutes and sweat as much as in some of the hottest GP’s somewhere in Malaysia.The mental bruises are a different thing. Being mentally strong Kimi seems to be able to take these setback as a part of his tough school in order to achieve a top speed in rally.Turun Sanomat, HagforsHEIKKI KULTA————————————EXCEPTION RULETurun Sanomat/Heikki KultaGod afton, bästä läsare… Nothing from Sweden has ever been written in this blog so let’s make history.The F1-blog isn’t changing into a rally-blog. I can promise you that. But just as I’m here in Hagfors where the evening is darkening I feel like I have one foot standing in a rally-boat and the other one in a F1-boat so I will speak a little about both.The Finnish success in rally is guaranteed. Mikko Hirvonen seems to have grown into a top performer who isn’t bowing to anyone anymore.A friend who writes to L’Equipe and who has also been a co-driver himself told me that Hirvonen took two new tyres to SS 14 while Loeb saved the new tyres for the following stages.Just because of that the difference grew to 8,8 seconds.Loeb praised Mikko’s strategical move. In the SS 15 he wouldn’t have needed studs at all according to Loeb.This is what strategics are. It’s good that I have a guy beside me who keeps a F1-reporter informed about things. In F1 the tyres will also be in a very crucial role because they have to endure heavy fuel loads.Kimi Räikkönen’s rally-journey has began just as thornly as some experts predicted. He would have the pace to TOP10 but those costly rookie mistakes are bound to happen.I heard from Citroen’s camp that now on Saturday Kimi isn’t more than a second per kilometer behind Loeb and 3-5 tenths per kilometer behind Ogier on normally proceeding stages. According to that Räikkönen would have caught both tenths by tenths during one day.Without Friday’s half an hour Räikkönen would drive for positions 9-10 meaning for points. Of course it’s useless to say if. Mistakes happen and you have to learn from them.How does Räikkönen’s rally racing appeal to Finns? How many is now following rally more closer than before? Which rally driver is the favourite of people reading this blog?Although Jerez is far from Sweden’s winter my line to the testing paddock is open.I heard from a reporter colleague who had been talking with a top engineer that in all this fuel-bluffing McLaren would be the most competitive at this stage. Red Bull is very close and after them come Ferrari and Mercedes.I have to remind you that even though someone would be 2-3 seconds behind the top the car he might still be the fastest one that day.The rally broadcast stops here. The next subject will be about F1 again.———————————————
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