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Finland's
2007 Formula One champion Kimi Raikkonen has signed a deal to
drive a C4 World Rally Car on 12 rounds of the 2010 World Rally
Championship.
This
morning's long awaited announcement from Citroen Racing brings an
end to weeks of speculation concerning the F1 star's plans for
2010, when he will take a sabbatical from his Grand Prix career.
Raikkonen
will drive for Citroen's second squad, the Junior World Rally
Team, thanks to backing from Red Bull - one of his personal
sponsors from F1. He will be co-driven by fellow Finn Kaj
Lindstrom, who previously partnered multiple WRC champion Tommi
Makinen. The only rally the pair will miss next year is Rally New
Zealand - an event the Junior Team is skipping altogether.
“I
always wanted to compete in rally, especially in the World Rally
Championship at some point in my career," said Raikkonen.
"Thanks to Red Bull, I have the opportunity to drive the best
car of the series with the Citroen C4. This is a new but very
exciting challenge. For the moment we have a one-year contract and
we will see how it goes for the future. I am really looking
forward to testing the car and taking the start of the first rally.”
Partnering
Raikkonen at the Citroen Junior team in 2010, will be French
rising star Sebastien Ogier, 25, who will also drive a Red
Bull-backed C4.
Citroen
Racing Director, Olivier Quesnel said: "We will continue to
count on Sebastien and Dani to defend our world titles in 2010,
and we will also be prolonging our association with Sebastien
Ogier who showed outstanding potential this year. Last but not
least, it is with immense joy that we welcome Kimi Raikkonen to
our ranks. We are very proud that he has chosen Citroen. In
addition to the confirmation of these four crews, we will
hopefully be able to announce other programmes over the coming
weeks."
Raikkonen's
only WRC experience to date came on this year's Rally Finland,
where ran as high as 15th overall in an Abarth Grande Punto S2000
before crashing on the second day. He has also entered three other
non-championship rallies this year.
Wrc.com
understands that Raikkonen and Lindstrom will get their first
taste of competition together in the C4 on the Arctic Lapland
Rally, the opening round of the Finnish Championship which starts
on 28 January from Rovaniemi, on the edge of the Arctic Circle.
Raikkonen
made his rally debut on this year's Arctic, at the wheel of his
own Fiat Abarth Grande Punto S2000. He finished thirteenth, more
than seven minutes in front of F1’s 1998 and 1999 world champion
Mika Hakkinen, who tackled the event in a Mitsubishi Lancer.
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