Rally of Turkey - Leg 3
Strong fifth place for Kimi in Turkey
18th of April 2010

© RedBull

The third day of the Rally of Turkey was shortened by two special stages this morning. Deniz 1 and Mudarli 1 were made impassable by heavy overnight rain and were cancelled by the event organisers.

Kimi Raikkonen enjoyed a fantastic Rally of Turkey, finishing fifth overall to add more points to his rally total and score his best ever result in a rally car.

But while Kimi`s reactions and car control are awesome, there are some things that even a former Grand Prix champion cannot control - such as erupting volcanoes.

More than 500 people from the different world rally teams have been left stranded in Turkey - and Kimi and Kaj are two of them. Kimi`s solution will probably consist of flying to somewhere in Italy and then embarking on a long car journey back to his home in Switzerland.

Kimis Citroen Junior Team will head back to their base in Paris on a fleet of buses, while other people are looking at solutions involving boats and trains.

 Ironically, the rally´s base in Istanbul was the traditional terminus of the Orient Express, the luxury train service that used to link France´s capital with Turkey.

The world of rallying may not always be glamorousI,but Kimi is thoroughly enjoying it after a fault-free Rally of Turkey in which he showed that he is a quick learner.

On only his ninthever rally, the Iceman beat several drivers with far more experience and set stage times that were never out of the top 10 - and often in the top six.

"I am really pleased with the way it´s gone," said Kimi.

"There was nothing particularly special; we just paid good attention to the pace notes and made sure that we made no mistakes.

The stages were really tough, particularly on the last day when it was very muddy:  it felt like driving on ice. I´m learning all the time and that´s a really nice feeling: a bit like my early days of circuit racing. I´m very happy, although I have no idea exactly how we are getting home tonight. It really doesn´t matter, I´m sure we´ll find a way...!"

The next event for Kimi and Kaj in the Red Bull Citroen will be the Portugal Rally from May 28-30, but before then they are hoping to do some testing in order to increase their experience.

P

Driver

Car

Time

Gap

SS

1 S. Loeb Citroën 3:01:38.7   23
2 P. Solberg Citroën 3:02:33.2 + 54.5 23
3 M. Hirvonen Ford 3:03:22.1 + 1:43.4 23
4 S. Ogier Citroën 3:05:24.7 + 3:46.0 23
5 K. Räikkönen Citroën 3:08:23.0 + 6:44.3 23
6 F. Villagra Ford 3:09:35.4 + 7:56.7 23
7 M. Wilson Ford 3:10:08.5 + 8:29.8 23
8 J. Latvala Ford 3:21:22.9 + 19:44.2 23
9 D. Kuipers Ford 3:25:00.9 + 23:22.2 23
10 A. Burkart Suzuki 3:28:43.4 + 27:04.7 23
17 H. Solberg Ford 3:57:42.3 + 56:03.6 23

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