Kimi Raikkonen likely to contest more rallies despite crash on tarmac rally

Kimi Raikkonen crash Kimi Raikkonen likely to contest more rallies despite crash on tarmac rally

Kimi Raikkonen at the weekend crashed out of his latest foray into the world of professional rallying.

The Ferrari driver, having entered two rounds of the Finnish rally championship in the winter, entered the same Tommi Makinen-prepared Fiat Abarth Grande Punto into the Rally della Marca.

But on the third stage of the event in northern Italy's Treviso region, while running eighth in his category, Raikkonen crashed and struck a concrete wall, terminally damaging the right rear corner of his white car.

Before the event, the Finn thanked Ferrari for giving him permission to compete:

I really enjoy myself [rallying] and it will be my first experience on tarmac after some tests on snow last winter. As I'm coming from the race track it will be interesting to see what I will be able to do behind the wheel on the roads.

Raikkonen's co-driver Kaj Lindstrom explained what happened on the rally to wrc.com:

We tested on Tuesday last week and Kimi was doing so well, his driving was really impressive. You can see how he can go 300kph a F1 car. He knows how to take the fast corners and he knows that sometimes the tyres slide a bit and he’s not upset with that. He’s good on snow and gravel but certainly very talented on tarmac.

We knew something was wrong with the car and when the boys had a look they found the centre diff was broken. They changed it for the rally but apparently it broke again, for reasons we don’t yet know.

The car wasn’t working properly even on the first stage. It was like driving a rear-wheel drive car, but then every now and then you’d get full four-wheel drive and the front wheels would pull. It was very inconsistent and made the handling nervous - especially under braking.

We did two stages, and then 4km into the third the car went off under braking and hit a concrete wall with a rear corner, breaking the lower control arm. We carried on for about 7km but we had to stop.

After the impact he said he wasn’t that upset because the car wasn’t performing as it should be. Even after the first stage we had given away a lot of time. It would have been a different story if the car had been okay. Looking forward, yeah, there is a plan. I’d say it’s most likely he will do more rallies this year.

Raikkonen crash videos Rally della Marca