Raikkonen Ready to Take On Rally Turkey Challenge

Having scored his first points in the World Rally Championship at the end of Rally Jordan, Kimi Raikkonen now looks forward to tackling the stages of Rally Turkey for a repeat of his performance a few weekends ago. The Fin drove a safe rally to 8th overall in Jordan, and is looking to add to his WRC tally this weekend when he'll visit the also-unknown territory of Turkey.

A few days prior to the official start of the rally, Raikkonen admitted that he'll come to Turkey in the same position he did in Jordan, Mexico or Sweden, meaning tackling stages and routes on which he has never driven before. Although the Turkish roads are expected to be a bit larger than in Jordan, Raikkonen admits he still looks at is as a big challenge.

“I actually thought that Jordan was the most difficult rally we have seen so far, but I don't really have any idea what this one is going to be like. (...) In Turkey, we're just going to have to see what sort of feeling we have with the stages and decide what is possible then,” said Raikkonen, according to the WRC official website.

Additionally, he set the same goal for Turkey as he did prior to the Jordan event: just finish the rally. Considering that he is a total stranger to more than 90 percent of the events this year, the former F1 champion would settle for seeing the finish line, even though he'll be aiming for as high as he can achieve in the rally.

“The priority is to finish, particularly because it's a completely new event and you have to get to know the stages. But, of course, I'm a competitive person so I always want to do the best that I can,” added the Citroen Junior Team driver.

Following the Rally Turkey outing this weekend, Raikkonen will take one month and a half of vacation from rallying, as he's not listed on Citroen Junior's programme for Rally New Zealand, scheduled for May 5-7. That means his next WRC outing will happen in Portugal.