On
Thursday this week, four days after finishing second at the
Hungarian Grand Prix, Ferrari Formula 1 driver Kimi Raikkonen will
strap into his Abarth Grande Punto S2000 ready to make his World
Rally Championship debut.
Alongside
Kimi on his home round of the WRC will be experienced co-driver
Kaj Lindstrom - the man who used to partner multiple rally
champion Tommi Makinen. Together, Raikkonen and Lindstrom have
tackled three rallies so far in the Abarth but this week's rally
marks the pair's debut on gravel.
This
weekend, in between making final preparations for the rally,
Lindstrom spoke to wrc.com about the challenge ahead.
How
much testing have you and Kimi done for Rally Finland?
"We've done two different tests - both in the same Abarth car
we'll use this week. The first one was two weeks ago, when we did
about 130kms on roads close to Jyvaskyla. We had another test on
Monday and Tuesday last week on roads nearer to Jamsa, and on that
one we did roughly 200km."
Finland
will be Kimi's first proper gravel
rally, right?
"Yes, and the first test was his first time ever on gravel
with the rally car. That was
why we needed to have two separate tests; the first was just so he
could get used to driving on gravel
and get used to the tyres. He needed to get some mileage in first
before he could think about altering the car set-up on the second
test."
You've
done two snow and one asphalt rally together so far, what was
Kimi's reaction after driving
his first proper gravel
stage?
"Well, they call him Iceman and he certainly kept his cool.
There was no big reaction as such. Perhaps the biggest surprise
was how easy he seemed to find it. For the first run we were on
the same test road we had used to prepare for the winter rally.
Even though the conditions were very different at least it was
familiar to him and he could slowly build the speed. But it didn't
take too long for him to get used to the gravel,
so I don't know if it helped him or not - he was pretty fast right
from the start."
What
car set-up changes did he made?
"With a Super 2000 car there are only really two things you
can alter; differentials and suspension. Kimi needed to work on
both areas to make the car
quicker and make the handling more predictable. It's important to
know when you lose grip exactly what the
car is going to do - and that was the main thing to sort. We are
quite pleased with what we've got now. After the
car was sorted it was sent back [to Tommi Makinen Racing] to be
stripped and rebuilt before the
rally."
Will
you test it again before Rally Finland starts?
"We'll check it on Monday - just to do 20 kilometres or so to
check everything works okay. That will be our shakedown because as
a 'non priority' crew we can't take part in Thursday's official
shakedown."
You've
co-driven for lots of world class rally drivers; how does Kimi's driving
compare?
"His car handling and driving
skills, like the lines he takes and so on, are at a very high
level - outstanding, actually. On the test I was quite surprised
by how quickly he got used to the gravel
and got the car to perform.
It's a very comfortable feeling for me to be in the
car with him in Finland - even though it's a high speed rally. You
can see that he controls the
car and not the other way around."
Has
Kimi had any specific driving
tuition for Rally Finland?
"Tommi [Makinen] went in the
car with him at our pre-event test but only in the passenger seat.
I forced him in for a ride! Tommi did drive Kimi when he was
preparing for the winter rallies, but not for this one."
What
do you think Kimi will find most difficult about Rally Finland?
The most difficult thing will be making correct pace notes because
Kimi's going to be competing against people who are a lot more
experineced. Some will have done five years rallying before they
even attempted pace notes - and they'll probably have been
learning notes for few more years before they tackle Rally Finland.
This week Kimi will go there on only his forth rally ever. During
the recce he'll drive 13 different stages in two days and making
accurate pace notes will be the most demanding job to do. It's the
most crucial part of this rally too - if you get the pace notes
right then the rest should be fine."
What's
your objective next week? Or is this all about fun for Kimi?
"It’s all about fun. We haven't talked about any result
that we want to have and I think that's the best way to do it. If
we can do three good days without mistakes, and hopefully without
punctures, then we will get some result for sure, but with the
amount of experience he has there's no point in setting any
targets. We'll just see. We'll go there with the aim of having fun
and making life difficult for the other drivers!"
Sebastien
Loeb has expressed an interest in F1 - Perhaps if it goes well for
Kimi he and Seb could swap keys for a while?
"Well... I know that Sebastien is very, very talented and
very good in rallying but I would say it is easier to step into
Formula 1 from the WRC world than to go the other way around. In
F1 you do the races and the circuits and you can go and practise
the same corners over and over - that's not like rally where you
drive the stages just twice in the recce at 80kph, and then you
have to do the same thing at full speed. In my view that's more
difficult. You only have to look at drivers like Mika Salo or Mika
Hakkinen or even Martin Brundle who did the RAC one year to see
that."
So
what is the appeal of rallying for Kimi?
"The challenge is one
thing. The WRC is not easy and it's totally different to what he
does for a living. He wants to see if he can do rallying at the
proper level and of course doing Rally Finland has always been a
dream for him. I'm just pleased that he's so into it - and that
he's happy to have me along too."