A lot of speech on the Kimi-WRC case...
The Kimi Räikkönen -rally project that started last year has according to Tommi Mäkinen been an extremely interesting and rewarding experience.
- When we got Kimi's car from Fiat Abarth we had to really wonder what kind of a green fruit they sent us. It was an incomprehensible half-finished car when it came to setups.
According to Tommi they had to drive Fiat 'into shape' for nearly 500 test-kilometers.
- I knew after driving a F1-car myself from what kind of a world Kimi came to rally from and also to what kind of driving style he was used to. I wanted to build the Fiat so that it fit him like a glove from the beginning.
- Kimi was reasonably satisfied with his car, there wasn't any need for any bigger setups after that. I was also really satisfied with the endresult especially when considering the starting points.
Tommi who has followed Kimi drive from close for a year says that the F1-champion can drive any car really fast.
- He is also a rally-talent, you don't get over that no matter how you try. And the more he had kilometers behind him, the more he got confidence and speed. Kimi's note paces still need experience so that he will be able to take everything out of it.
Tommi thinks that Räikkönen doesn't have to drive many rallies on tarmac before he already is in the leading groups.
- I think that in the first rally on tarmac Kimi will cut in straight away ahead of Matthew Wilson, Henning Solberg and others up to 5th or 6th overall. Unfortunately Kimi's only rally on tarmac went bad right from the start when we got a gearbox from Italy that was wrongly assembled. Parts were missing and it broke down at the first stage.
- With a competitive car Kimi could do reasonably well in WRC but he still has some way to the victory. Only after he knows exactly the nature of the car and how it wants to behave in different situations and the pace notes are in place, only then can he start to fight for the last tenths of seconds that decide the WRC-victory.
Fiat's S2000-car was also really part-consuming so it wasn't any cheap hobby for Räikkönen.
- When I followed the running costs of S2000-Fiat I saw that you could easily drive three N-group -drivers with the same money, Tommi smiles.
Yet Räikkönen's Fiat was going well and this was also noticed in Fiat Abarth.
- They asked quite a lot from Fiat about what had been done to the car and where. I didn't tell them anything about that side. I only wondered since one assumes that engineers from a team of that level should know cars and that setups are always individual. A rally car is a unity where power transfer -setups go together with suspension, stabilizers, tyrecorners etc. It's not even worth to start explaining one single thing to anyone on the phone. It's useless.
source: KR Forum
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