Kimi Raikkonen insists he is looking forward to everything about his debut season in the World Rally Championship and has admitted he isn't thinking about the possibility of returning to F1 in 2011.

Raikkonen will compete in all-bar one of the events on the 2010 WRC calendar with the Citroen Junior Team after leaving his role with Ferrari, and had his first outing at the wheel of the Citroen C4 WRC on the Arctic Rally last weekend.

Speaking at the launch of the 2010 season, the Finn insisted that he was excited by the challenge of taking his career in a new direction and was hopeful of impressing as the year goes on.

"I would say everything, because everything is new and completely different to Formula One,” he told the official WRC website when asked what he was looking forward to the most. “At this stage it's all exciting; it doesn't really matter where we go or what we do, it's a new thing.

"First of all we have a lot to learn from the rallies, and that's not going to be an easy challenge. We did one rally last weekend and it definitely helped us going to Sweden. We'll just take things from there. We need to do our best, learn as quickly as we can and hopefully get some good results."

Raikkonen added that he was deadly serious about his WRC programme for the season ahead and refused to be drawn on the possibility that he may look to return to F1 for 2011.

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't serious,” he said. “Anytime I start something new I want to learn, and try to do the best I can. It's something that's going to be a big challenge and I'm looking forward to it."

"It's a completely different world [to F1]. The events themselves are different and the people are different. At this launch, with everyone together, there seems to be a more open and easy relationship between the teams and that's one of the very nice things about rally. There is also a sense that the sport is picking up. There have been maybe some difficult times but it looks like everything is turning better and in the next couple of years it should be even more popular that it is now. It's quite strong.

“I really enjoy it here now, and if it's like this, then maybe I stay or maybe I try something else. I have no plans, no deadlines yet. Let's see what happens."

http://www.crash.net/World+Rally/news/156534/1/raikkonen_im_looking_forward_to_everything.html