Kimi Raikkonen Experiences Slight Collision in Rally Sweden Recce

Kimi Raikkonen started off the season opening Rally Sweden on the wrong foot on Wednesday, during the recce of the Karlstad-based event. Using Citroen's Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX – especially for the recce outings – the former Formula One champion slightly collided with another rally driver at a junction, on the road to a stage.

The Citroen officials were the first to confirm the incident – as they didn't want the media to make a big fuss about it – but insisted that the collision was minor and wasn't the result of a driving mistake, but rather an unfortunate incident.

“There was a small incident yesterday. It was not in a stage, it was on the road to a stage. Kimi almost missed a junction and was in the process of starting to turn around when another competing car came into the same junction and there was a small impact,” said Citroen's Benoit Nogier, according to Autosport.

“There was no problem with Kimi's car. He came through the stage with no problem and then the mechanics made some small repair to the car after the stage. There was no danger of Kimi not being able to drive the car, it was never that bad,” added the French official.

We hope this is not just another episode of Kimi's bad luck this year, as he was forced to quit the Arctic Rally two weekends ago (then rejoin the rally, but only for preparation reasons, to get used to the car prior to Rally Sweden) after a crash in the very early stages of the event. Raikkonen will drive a factory Citroen C4 WRC this weekend, and is scheduled to start off his 2010 WRC campaign – Rally Sweden in particular – with a night superspecial stage on Thursday.