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Kimi had a lot of fun at Vaakuna rally
23rd of February 2009

© ICEMAN-KIMI.com

Kimi Räikkönen has completed his second professional rally on Sunday. After his successfull debut at the Arctic Lapland Rally in January he now took part at the Vaakuna Rally in Finland.

Kimi again steered a Fiat Grande Punto S2000 through the snowy landscape of Finland. Like at the Arctic Lapland Rally he was navigated by his co-driver Kaj Lindström. Kimi drove a fantastic race and was seventh until the end of the fifth stage. But in the sixth stage he drove a bit to fast and came off the track. But spectators were very friendly to Kimi and helped to push back the car on the track. However, Kimi lost almost seven minutes, what prevented a top ten result. Kimi finally had a gap of 8.09.4 minutes on winner Jari Ketomaa and achieved the 24th place in the overall standings and place 17 in his class. 

Interview after the rally:

Question: Kimi Raikkonen, it's hard to swipe the smile from your face, what kind of day did you have?

Kimi: Pretty nice altough we hit the snowdrift at the second last section, and badly after that, I mean it slowed my time by 7 minutes but other than that I had a fun time. 

Questin: So you had to do shovel work?

Kimi: Fortunately not, because we had such great audience. The place we drove off was good and we got help at getting the car out of the ditch.. of course it would have been nice to come to the finish without problems but my own little mistake paid.

Question: What kind of situation it was? Did Kaj drop from the notes?

Kimi: (laughing) No no no, it was my own mistake.. I drove too fast.. but great roads and I had fun nevertheless, so no complaints.

Question: Now you drove your second race of rally, how much has a rally bug bitten you?

Kimi: Well I have always wanted to try it, and why not now, I have nothing else better to do. It's nice to drive a little and this being a different kind of racing so it always educates you and I bet if there's more time I'll drive more.

Question: Are we going to see you this season in a (gravel) rally race?

Kimi: Well like I said, it's hard to say right now but let's see how I have time and I think I'll drive when there's time and nothing else.. just for the practise it's nice.

Question: Last question, season 2009 in F1 is around the corner, how does the new Ferrari feel and what kind of goals do you have for the season?

Kimi: Well pretty nice of course, but the car will change a lot before the first race.. we will try to win and we won't try anything else than that. we will see that on the first race what kind of package everybody has but I think we should have a competitive car. 

Question: so you don't think you'll need Kaj Lindström next to you in F1?? (laughing)

Kimi: (laughs) no I think it's more learning by heart, so I think I'll get along alone.

Results:

EK 1: 9th place (-8.4 sec. / -8.4 sec.) » complete results
EK 2: 10th place (-9.5 sec. / -17.6 sec.) » complete results
EK 3: 7th place (-21.3 sec. / -36.7 sec.) » complete results
EK 4: 9th place (-13.4 sec. / -49.3 sec.) » complete results
EK 5: 7th place (-19.6 sec. / -1:08.9 min.) » complete results
EK 6: 43th place (-6:42. min./-7:51.3 min.) » complete results
EK 7: 8th place (-18.1 sec. / -8:09.4 min.) »
complete results

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