Red Bull on stage: Rally Bulgaria Day 2 Report

RED BULL ON STAGE: RALLY BULGARIA DAY 2 REPORT

Kimi Raikkonen switched from Formula One to the World Rally Championship because he wanted to experience something different.

His wish has finally come true. On day two of the Rally Bulgaria, there were several differences that he noticed between Grand Prix racing and rallying. For example, in no particular order:

1. There are no goats on the circuit in Formula One

2. A Grand Prix has never been held in a ski resort

3. There are considerably fewer than 43 cars on the grid in Formula One

4. You don't get the chance to re-start a Grand Prix after landing upside down

5. The alarm clock rarely goes off at 5am on a GP race weekend

6. A motorhome is just a truck in the WRC: not a small building

7. Changing a gearbox on a Formula One car takes longer than 12 minutes

8. You never see a woolly hat in an F1 paddock, unless it's made by Prada

9. Formula One mechanics do not generally use a hammer to repair their cars

10. Not many F1 spectators are called Miroslav and own a pig farm near Dolna Banya

These were just a few of the basic differences that Kimi took on board throughout the second day of the all-asphalt rally, based in Borovets. Doubtless there are more new things that he will discover over the course of the year.

After a great job from the Citroen Junior Team to fix Kimi's Red Bull-backed C4 WRC, which visited the Bulgarian scenery yesterday, the Iceman concentrated on building his confidence back up today and testing in preparation for the asphalt rallies still to come.

Kimi overcame tricky roads, variable temperatures, and challenging stages to set times that were in the top eight all day: a great achievement for somebody contesting their first World Championship asphalt rally.

Kimi commented: "It's not been so easy for me, because when you're not fighting for the top places then there's obviously not the same motivation. But in the end it was important for us to have the experience and the time in the car, so it's been a good day and I've enjoyed myself. We started quite far down in the order so the roads were dirty a lot of the time, but this is also part of rallying.

In general though I've liked the stages today because they had a nice rhythm to them. Tomorrow there are four more stages and it's another good opportunity to learn some more. We need all the time in the car that we can get, so this is our main focus here."

Kimi's co-driver Kaj Lindstrom is also visiting Bulgaria for the first time, and he was equally pleased with the progress that Kimi made today. "It's all about getting the experience," he pointed out.

"We've had no problems at all and we've been working on every aspect of the job, such as the pace notes. It's actually very easy to forget that this is only Kimi's first asphalt rally in the World Championship. By the time we finish we will have nearly doubled our experience on asphalt in this car, so we're improving all the time."

Fonte: redbullrallye.com

Que maravilha as diferenças entre o rali e a F1 que Kimi vivenciou nestes dois dias e que foram, mais uma vez, muito bacanas e bem escritas pela galera da Red Bull.

Simplesmente adoro ler estes textos que saem após os dias de competição.

Beijinhos, Ice-Ludy