The rally took Raikkonen less than one hour to complete, but the most important things was that the Finn felt at ease on the roads near the city of Strasbourg. He eventually won by a margin of over 3 minutes, after scoring unbeatable times in the 2 stages on schedule.
“This was a good preparation for the Rally of France. From what I am told, the roads on this event were fairly representative of what we will see on the next WRC round, so I am happy. It's also good to get back into driving the car on asphalt - that's very useful as well,” admitted Raikkonen after the rally, as reported by Autosport.
This was Raikkonen's last and only preparation rally ahead of the WRC round in France, as he and his team have used all the 15 days of testing allowed by the FIA for the 2010 season. In fact, this was the main reason why the Finn didn't do a proper test run alongside co-driver Kaj Lindtsrom this weekend, and had to sign up for a local competition in order to get some running time.
Out of the last 3 rallies of the 2010 WRC season, two will be held on asphalt – France and Spain – before the field heads to the season finale round of Great Britain. This should help Raikkonen end his maiden WRC season on a high note, as it's a well-known fact that the Finn is much more comfortable driving the C4 WRC on asphalt, rather than gravel (despite having scored his best result of 2010 in Turkey, 5th place).
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