Neste Oil Rally Finland: Day 2 review (part 2)

(continued from Part 1)

Juha 'Kankers' Kankkunen scored a 'remarkable' seventh place on his one-off return to the WRC onboard a Ford Focus RS WRC. Kankkunen said that his aims at the start of the rally were to finish inside the Top 10, which he did comfortably, and to have a go at Kimi Raikkonen. Kankkunen didn't have a go at Raikkonen because 'Kankers' was faster than the former F1 World Champion for most of the rally.

"I was proud to hear the support of so many fans this weekend and was very happy to be here with some of the best rallying people in the world – many of them have known me for more than 20 years," Kankkunen said. "Today was a long day and I struggled to warm up first thing but it was nice to entertain the big crowd with some slides this weekend – even though that's not the fastest way to go!

"I drove at my own pace for this rally and didn't try to catch the title-chasers. My aim was to finish in the top ten finish so I am very happy to have finished in eighth and, of course, ahead of [F1 2007 world champion] Kimi [Räikkönen]."

And, as a bonus, he received the Abu Dhabi Spirit Of The Rally award at the end of the rally.

"I am delighted to receive this," Kankkunen continued. "It has been fantastic to get back behind the wheel. It was a fantastic opportunity to enjoy a Car [this weekend]. I hadn't spent much time in the latest generation cars and I knew there have been a lot of changes, but I didn't have any undue surprises."

Not too bad for a 51-year old that hasn't driven a WRC car for 8 years! Kankkunen also described the modern day WRC cars as being a bit slow on the fast stuff, compared to the mental Group B cars in which he made his name in during the 80's.

Raikkonen, on the other hand, didn't have a great Day 2. On the opening stage on Day 2, SS12 Kolonkulma, he overcooked it into a right-hand bend, sending the C4 into a ditch, where it beached itself. With a large number of spectators absent, Raikkonen lost bucket-loads trying to get back on to the road, which eventually ended up as 10 mins, and then he received 3:50 mins in penalties after arriving to Time Controls 23 and 24, 2mins and 21 mins late, respectively. In trying to get back on the road, both front tyres came off the rims and the front bumper was pulled off. Carrying only one spare, Raikkonen was forced to finish the stage with one tyre completely gone. All these dilemmas dropped Raikkonen and co-driver Kaj Linstrom down the leader board like a stone, eventually ending up in 32^nd. A good fight back finally netted him 25^th o/a.

"We arrived a bit too quickly into a corner at the start of the stage," Raikkonen recalled. "The car slid towards the outside and became stuck in a ditch. It was unfortunately a place where there were no spectators nearby. Several eventually came running to help get us out. [But] we had to change a wheel in order to complete the stage and the front bumper was also broken."

"It was an extremely difficult rally," Raikkonen continued. "We were a bit unlucky this morning but it is all part of the learning process. During the first day we tried not to take too many risks to be sure of making the finish, then we just got caught out on a slippery corner at the beginning of day two.

"With only two days in the rally this year there's not so much chance to make up the time lost, so from then on it was a question of getting to the finish. We were able to make a lot of progress with the pace notes, which was useful, and have more kilometres behind the wheel of the car, which is the most important thing. Of course I'm a bit disappointed as there was no real motivation today but in the end getting to the finish was the main aim. It's all about the experience." ha said.

Co-driver Kaj Linstrom was trying to be quite positive about the whole situation.

"The really positive thing is we've continued the good work that we left off in Bulgaria. But this is a tough sport," he added. "You can have a good rally and survive all the complicated things, but then caught out by a place that is reasonably slow and straightforward, which is what happened to us today.

"We had been going very carefully during the first day and we thought that it might be possible to push a bit harder on day two. In the end we never really got the chance, as after we went off it was hard to find the same pace. We built up more experience though and above all we hope that everybody really enjoyed watching us."

(my apologies about having to split the article in two separate parts (the final word count came to over 1600), there was a lot of information to fit in. The reports on the WRC support classes will follow later).