Mateschitz: No plans to hire Kimi

Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has denied plans to hand Kimi
Raikkonen a seat in his team if the Finn decides to return to Formula 1.

Raikkonen is currently competing in the World Rally Championship
after securing a deal with the Citroen junior team, which is backed by
Red Bull.

The 2007 world champion admitted the move could be permanent and that
he is yet to decide on his plans for 2011.

But Mateschitz has made it clear that despite Raikkonen’s link with
Red Bull, there are no plans to hand the Finn a seat next year.

"This is nothing more than pure speculation," said Mateschitz. "We do
not know what Kimi intends to do in one year. We have a very good
relationship which makes room for speculations.

"But to tell you now Kimi will be racing for us in 2011 is not
serious. If Webber provides top performances this year we will not
reward him by giving his cockpit to Raikkonen."

Australian Mark Webber has a contract with Red Bull Racing until the
end of this year, while team-mate Sebastian Vettel has a contract until
2012.

No revolutions for Raikkonen in Mexico
Source: RallyBuzz.com

Leon, the town where the Rally Mexico is based, produces 60% of
Mexico’s shoes. An interesting fact in itself, but few people realise
just how significant shoes have turned out to be in Mexican culture. The
Spanish word for ‘shoe’ is ‘zapato’: something that you will see above
the door of every other shop in Leon. And it is surely no co-incidence
that another one of Mexico’s most notable exports is the Zapata
moustache, favoured initially by revolutionaries and The Village People
but now enjoying a small but significant comeback amongst cutting-edge
fashionistas.

Facial hair has not yet been adopted by the majority of World Rally
Championship crews, probably because it is intrinsically un-aerodynamic.
Although Finland is one of the last bastions of the moustache –
four-time World Rally Champion Juha Kankkunen had one as his trade-mark –
Kimi Raikkonen has no plans to grow one in the near future.

Instead, he is concentrating his efforts on Rally Mexico: the second
event of his World Rally Championship season with Red Bull. Thanks its
dusty gravel stages, spicy enchiladas, and non-stop Mariachi bands,
Mexico could not present a bigger contrast to the opening round in
Sweden. But had it not been for a costly excursion into a snowbank on
the opening day there, Kimi would have finished comfortably inside the
top eight.

"Gravel is the surface that everybody associates with rallying, and
of course it is a complete contrast to anything that I experienced in
Formula 1," said the Red Bull driver. "If you are sliding a Formula 1
car, something is going wrong, but in rallying this is something that
you do every day. We learned a lot in Sweden and this will certainly
help us in Mexico, but effectively we are starting all over again from
the beginning now. My approach is going to be exactly the same though:
we want to build up our speed at a comfortable pace and above all get to
the finish. We managed to get quicker and quicker the last time we were
out and this will be the aim for us again in Mexico."

As is the case on all the rallies apart from Finland this year,
Mexico will be a completely new experience for Kimi. However, co-driver
Kaj Lindstrom has competed on the Rally Mexico twice already and he
hopes to use this experience to help Kimi to make progress.

"Actually, I retired from the rally on both of those previous
occasions so I’ve got a point to prove as well!" he said. "But I have a
good idea of what we can expect from the Mexican stages. I was really
impressed by how much Kimi managed to learn in Sweden, and if we can
have the same sort of pace on gravel then I will be very happy. I know
how much Kimi is looking forward to this rally and I’m sure he’s going
to enjoy every kilometre of it: particularly as the road sections are
very short so the action is more or less non-stop!"