Farewell Kimi

29th November 2011

By Matt Beer

It was fun while it lasted, but the adventure is over - Kimi Raikkonen is leaving the forests and heading back to Formula 1 with Renault, or rather Lotus, as the team becomes in 2012.

Two years ago, it had all seemed so promising. The world knew Raikkonen was ultra-rapid but had lost motivation in F1. It was the politics and the sponsor pressure that he appeared to have tired of, not the driving, and he loved dabbling in rallying on the side. The World Rally Championship gave him a chance to get back to pure driving, in a more laidback atmosphere in which he could thrive in time - especially with Citroen, Red Bull and Kaj Lindstrom behind him.

It wasn't just going to be good for Kimi's morale either: the arrival of such a big name was a massive publicity bonus for the WRC and saw a huge number of hitherto disinterested new fans heading to the stages or tuning in to Rally Radio to follow Raikkonen's rise to the top in his new challenge.

Except it didn't quite work out like that. Inevitably Raikkonen was some way off Citroen Junior team-mate Sebastien Ogier's pace in 2010, and inevitably he went off the road a lot as he got to grips with such a different discipline. But this was nothing that time, patience and mileage couldn't fix, especially as there were flashes of promising speed along the way.

Time was what the WRC and Raikkonen marriage did not have, though. It wasn't far into 2011 before it became clear that his heart was elsewhere. There were rallies skipped (missing Australia meant his Ice 1 team was kicked out of the standings) and events not rejoined under superally even when it was easily possible and the extra mileage would've been so beneficial. It was the extra-curricular outings that were most telling, though. Whereas once rallying had been Raikkonen's release from the drudgery of F1, now he was popping up in NASCAR Trucks and Peugeot LMP1 cars as an escape from the WRC - and also becoming pivotal to the F1 driver market. Even as he did so, his stage times got a little better, and his demeanour with fans and the WRC media became slightly more open (by Iceman standards), hinting at what might have been.

So farewell and good luck, Kimi. We would've loved to see you stick around, give rallying a proper chance and really hone your skills, but it was better to have had you with us for two years than not at all.