In Kimi's ride - Kaj Lindström; Home race went well and not so well

Hello to everyone again. Finland's WRC-rally is behind us and the weekend went very nicely with the exception of Myhinpää 1 ja Kolonkulma special stages. Generally speaking the race went according to expectations. Considering Kimi's experience, he drove pretty good SS-times. I believe that our speed was improved by the previous Bulgary Rally's good speedlevel. In that race Kimi had to listen to the notes for the first time in top speed and it helped him also in Jyväskylä's fast roads. In Jyväskylä Kimi's listening to notes was very good and focused.

But, but. Mistakes happen, that was known already before the season started. As first-timers we drove Myhinpää too carefully and Kimi wasn't happy with his performance. On Saturday's first special stage Kolonkulma we drove into the ditch. It was a pure error of assessment. Kimi lifted his foot from the brake a little too early. There was about 10 km/h too much speed and we ended up in the ditch.

There was bad luck when driving out of the road. The car's left-side tires bounced to the ditch after hitting away from the rims. The car didn't break in the accident at all but when we drove back to the road we had to take more speed and there the front bumper got broken.

We continued to the finish of the special stage with two undamaged tires. We had only one spare tire with us, so it took some time after the stage to get the other tire back on its rim. That asked for a bit of excersice to say the least. But we succeeded, although we got a couple of minutes of time-penalty in the end.

Citroën is a strict car for changes. When the front bumper was missing at the same time the car's driving characteristics weakened substantially. Next two stages was driven to say "greetings" since the car wasn't working.

It was all the time a great feeling to drive in Jyväskylä. Along the routes and in service we got plenty of encouragement and a big thank you for that. We met numerous representatives of our partners in service as well.

I'm looking forward for the next German Rally with confidence and I'm waiting for it eagerly. The race is driven in three weeks in the area of Mosel on tarmac roads. It was good fortune that we were able to continue from the Kolonkulma special stage because from the rest of the rally we got very important noting- and driving experience for the end of the season. Now that we have experienced Jyskälä, I'm expecting a lot from the German R...

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