ADAC Rally Deutschland is a rally that takes place on tarmac but also on concrete, again, a new surface for Raikkonen. However, the German rally meant one of the high points in the Finn’s rallying career. He won his first WRC-stage on the streets of Trier. It was a short super special stage, the kind of stage he can memorize easily and, therefore, not depend on the pacenotes. Moreover, the stage also took place on clean tarmac which also helped Raikkonen. In this rally, it is also remarkable the good results the 2007 F1 world champion achieved in the famous Panzerplatte stage: a mamouth 48-kilometres-long stage that runs along a road whose sides are marked by the dreadful “Hinkelsteine”, sharp rocks that are placed to help tanks stay on the road and that have caused some very spectacular accidents in the past. Raikkonen obtained the 8^th best time the first time through the Panzerplatte and the 6^th best time the second time through. After being involved in a couple of little dramas during the rally, Raikkonen finished in 7^thposition, 8 minutes and 50.5 seconds and 1.31 seconds per kilometre behind Loeb.

Following Germany, the Finn went through a very bad patch. He crashed out during Rally Japan and Rallye de France. And he couldn’t even start Rally Spain. The Iceman rolled his car during shakedown and damaged the roll cage which automatically meant he was not allowed to start the rally. The only positive point during this time was when he won Rallye du Vosgien, a national French rally he entered to prepare for Rallye de France.

After hitting a low point in Spain, only the last rally of the season was left, and that was Wales Rally GB. This rally takes place mostly on mud, a very slippery and tricky surface on which Raikkonen had almost no experience and which, he admits, he does not read very well: he cannot predict the amount of grip he is going to find at each corner. Nevertheless, he drove to the end of the rally with a steady pace – 1.82 seconds per kilometre off the pace of the rally winner – and was not involved in any kind of incident. He was rewarded with four points for his finish in 8th position, 10 minutes 27.9 seconds behind the winner, Sebastien Loeb.

Raikkonen finished the championship with 25 points in 10th position.

After skipping Rally New Zealand due to the high costs associated to rally Down Under, the next event in Raikkonen’s schedule was the Vodafone Rally de Portugal, another gravel rally. It became the 3rd event in a row that the Finn finished a WRC rally in the points. He finished 10th, 11 minutes 34.3 seconds behind his teammate Sebastien Ogier. He made a few mistakes that cost him some time and his overall pace was 1.81 seconds per kilometre slower than Ogier.

Before facing the first tarmac rally of the WRC season, Raikkonen and Sebastien Ogier took part in the Rally della Lanterna, a rally that is part of Italian Tarmac Rallying Championship. This was the Finn’s first podium in his short rallying career. He finished the rally in second position, just 5.7 seconds behind Ogier in what was his first experience ever with tarmac in a Citroen C4.

The next rally of the championship was the only one where Raikkonen had some previous experience: the Neste Oil Rally Finland. In 2009, he took part in the event with his Fiat Punto Grande S2000 prepared by Tommi Makinen. He was 3rd in his class when he rolled out of the rally in SS19. His effort in 2010 went only slightly better. The Finn went off into a ditch in SS12 and lost a lot of time, but at least, in this occasion, he could drive his home event to the finish line, even if he finished in 25th position, 23 minutes 15.3 seconds behind his fellow Finn Jari-Matti Latvala, who won the rally. In the fast gravel stages of Finald, Raikkonen reduced his difference in pace to the rally winner to 1.38 seconds per kilometre, confirming his progressive improvement on gravel.Next, he went to Rally Bulgaria, another new rally on the WRC calendar. A few things became clear during this rally: Raikkonen is much faster on tarmac than gravel – he was only 0.54 seconds per kilometre off the pace, and in some splits he even was the fastest of all drivers – he crashes easily in slow tight corners and he has the tendency to crash out on his side of the road. Up to this point the Iceman seemed to be able to evaluate braking points in the high-speed passages very well, but not so well in slow turns where he tended to go off the road. Some experts think his tendency to get off the road when he makes a mistake arises because the Finn only steps once on the brakes when approaching a corner, a much more time-effective way of braking but much more risky: if he brakes too late, he is automatically off the road. Some of the experts also think he can evaluate the braking points at high speed better because of his past in Formula 1. His tendency to crash out road on the left side of the road is a curious one; a common joke in the rallying world is that you better crash on your co-driver side of the car since, well, he is just the co-driver. Raikkonen seems to prefer taking risks when he is the one who might get the hit, though. And this is what happened in a hairpin in SS4, Raikkonen was a few kph too fast in a very slow right turn and, very slowly, rolled off the road. It was a minor accident given that it happened at very low speed, but the car ended up upside down in a deep ditch covered by vegetation and the automatic alarm system went off, making the organizers stop the stage immediately and send an ambulance to the accident point, just to find the driver, without a scratch, merely standing on the floor of his car. Raikkonen re-entered the rally the next day, with 10 minutes superrallying penalties and ended the event in 11th, 14 minutes and 6.4 seconds behind Loeb.