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How Kimi spent his time away from F1 (IV)

by - 12/13/2011 11:23:00 p.m.

The next event on the WRC calendar was the Corona Rally Mexico, a gravel rally that takes place at high altitude. Raikkonen started this rally without any prior testing on gravel, which meant that he did not have any experience with the Citroen C4 on this kind of surface. A back injury from his Formula 1 days resurfaced and the tests had to be cancelled. During this rally, the Finnish driver experienced the biggest crash of his rallying career. His car suffered a technical problem during the second stage of the rally which made him lose 35 minutes. Once he had no chances whatsoever of making it to the points, he decided to drive flat out… and rolled down a hill on stage 7. Neither he nor Kaj Lindstrom, his co-driver, suffered any injuries, but the car was severely damaged and Raikkonen had to retire. Several days after the accident, reports surfaced that the rear spoiler of Raikkonen’s car was never found. The team suspects that the spoiler simply detached itself prior to the accident, making the car much more unstable under braking. However, we will never know if it was one of the causes of the accident. This was not the first time in Raikkonen’s career that his rear spoiler went missing; during the 2004 German Grand Prix, rear wing of his McLaren detached when he was driving at about 280 kph. On that occasion, the Finn crashed heavily against a tyre wall.

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