The 30-year-old, Kimi Raikkonen, former McLaren and Ferrari driver, known as the ‘Iceman’, has opted to forego the massive wages on offer on the Formula One circuit to have a tilt at capturing the world rally title this season - the first leg gets under way in Sweden next Thursday.
It is a decision the impassive unemotional Finn - though his readiness for laughs extends to competing in a powerboat race dressed as a gorilla under the pseudonym James Hunt in honour of the late Formula One champion (gaining his team the award for best dressed group) - is not regretting making.
“This is a different challenge,” conceded Raikkonen, whose older brother Rami is a rally driver, when the pilots came together for a press conference in Paris earlier this week.
“To be frank I am more interested in this than Formula One. Even when I was testing my Formula One car I never paid any interest to the times of the other drivers,” added Raikkonen, who will be racing for the Citroen Junior team.
“Of course the challenge is different as in Formula One you are racing against each other, whereas in Rallying it is racing against the clock,” added Raikkonen, who has raced in one previous leg of the series, the 2009 Rally of Finland, which he failed to finish.
“Everything is new. I don’t know the places or the stages,” he confessed.
“I am learning from zero. With the notes, you have to write them so you can understand them. If they are not legible you make mistakes.
“I don’t really know what to expect, I want to get into the points first and later in the season we can work on getting the car to go faster.”
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