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Raikkonen to Have Extended Testing Programme in WRC

After contesting in 5 rounds of the World Rally Championship this season, Kimi Raikkonen finished 3 of them inside the Top 10, which is nothing short of good news for the former F1 champion. The Finnish driver was running for 8th place in Rally Portugal, before a tire puncture dropped him 2 places in the final day of the event and he had to settle for only one point (10th place).

It's been a really tough weekend, but this is all part of the learning process,” said Raikkonen after the rally, admitting that his lack of experience cost him some valuable points in Portugal.

The last day was particularly difficult, as the handling of the car did not feel right, so we decided to play it safe and make sure of a finish. Then we hit something on the side of the road just after the start of the first stage in the afternoon and that gave us a puncture, which cost us a lot of time,” added the Citroen Junior driver.

Despite the 10th place finish, Citroen Junior's team manager Benoit Nogier emphasized the importance of Raikkonen finishing as many rallies as he can in 2010, as expecting more than a learning season from the Finn would be unrealistic this year.

Additionally, Nogier confirmed no less than 10 days of testing for Raikkonen this season, spread in between the remaining 7 rounds of the 2010 season.

We have more testing planned for the next part of the season. Of course, we have the Lanterna Rally coming up in Italy, which will be Kimi's first time on asphalt. And then we have another test for the gravel,” said the Citroen Junior official.

We will have maybe 10 days of testing before the end of the season. He has a two-day test before Finland, one day and a half before Germany and two days before GB, two days before France, one or two before Catalunya, it's a lot of testing. This will help for sure.
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