Raikkonen explains retirement decision


Kimi Raikkonen has elected not to re-start the final day of the Rallye de France-Alsace in order to save his car for the Catalunya Rally in three weeks' time.

The former Grand Prix Champion had a torrid time yesterday, sliding off the road on two occasions and dropping just out of the top 50 overall.

Although the car was recovered back to service undamaged after his second off on SS15, Raikkonen decided that it was best not to re-start the final day, consisting just of two runs over a military camp stage and superspecial stage, in order not to risk going off again and damaging his Citroen C4 WRC.

Due to his road position, the Finn struggled with all the mud on the road left by previous cars cutting the corners, and he felt that this would be a major problem on the final leg today - particularly with all the big cuts anticipated on the *** No swearing *** Camp military stage.

“I don't think we’re going to learn much more under these conditions, so the sensible decision is to save the car for the Catalunya Rally, which I'm really looking forward to,” said Raikkonen.

“I don’t want to risk going off again. In some places, you could hardly see the asphalt here with all the mud and gravel on the road. The car did not sustain any damage during either of our two incidents yesterday, but obviously when you are running so far down the order you don’t have exactly the same motivation and that makes things quite difficult. We still learned a lot though and it has been really useful to have had this experience.”

Raikkonen’s next outing will be the Catalunya Rally from 22-24 October. Before then, he will test his car at the Citroen Junior Team’s nominated test base in France next week.

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No restart for Raikkonen in France
2nd October 2010
By Charlie Contadeli


Kimi Raikkonen won’t restart Rallye de France on Sunday after electing to save his Citroen C4 WRC for Spain’s round of the world championship later this month.

Raikkonen, Formula One world champion in 2007, slithered off the road and retired on Saturday’s penultimate stage. Although the car was undamaged, Raikkonen has opted to stop for good rather than return to action on Sunday’s final four stages.

“There was no point risking damaging the car ahead of Catalunya because it will be the same car I use there,” said Raikkonen. “The conditions here will not be the same as in Spain so I won’t learn much by driving tomorrow. We are expecting difficult conditions again tomorrow so I decided not to risk an accident when I am not learning anything.”

Raikkonen’s Citroen Junior Team stablemate Sebastien Ogier will restart, however, after his mechanics repaired the damaged suspension top mount, which forced his retirement on stage 14.

Source: http://www.octetort.com/2010/10/no-restart...-in-france.html

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Vive le France!


Well, this is the rally we have been looking forward with very positive feelings since the rally-Bulgaria in mid-July.

We are heading for the second brand new tarmac rally of the WRC season. As well as we got some handicap in Bulgaria, I expect having a tiny advantage in our side against the frontrunners in Rally France, too.

Obviously, the other drivers won't be benefitting that much of the pace notes from the last ten years and the familiarity of the roads. This time we are all starting more or less from the same level and all of us has to learn all the stages from now on.

We didn't have a test session after Rally Japan, but, instead, we went to the local French Rally of Vosgien. It was good practise and good fun. We achieved some good results, we found some good things in the car and we got a good feel with the French roads similar we are gonna have in the WRC rally this weekend.

Me and my co-driver Kaj Lindstrom were happy with the work we did and with the feeling we had with the car during those special stages. We started the rally with the basci set-up, moved to a wrong way, but coming back to the basics it went right and now we should have a solid foundation to start the real rally on Friday.

Obviously, it's very difficult to say anything beforehand how the rally goes this time. We have to wait until we get there in the area and starting pushing. We go there to find the right rhytm quickly and to get things going smoothly since the very beginning this time.

To finish the rally without major errors is the target as always, but you never know, unfortunately, while I'm still lacking the long rally experience to score good results every time.

For the teams with Citroen WRC C4 cars, this will be a special weekend. While you drive a rally with a French car in France, you will get a lot of support and cheering from all the French fans. The French are real rally people like my Finnish compatriots. For sure, the atmosphere is going to be great - like in Finland.

Sebastien Loeb has a chance to clinch his world title. I don't know how many of them he has, I have lost in counting long time ago, but one thing I know - he's doing all he can to win his home rally and become a champion at home.

We hang on to do our very best. I still feel frustraded with some mistakes we had in the last couple of rallies. It feels just good to go back to tarmac, which gives me a cozy feeling every time.

We had a good training with a local rally in Italia before Bulga...

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