Onto New Challenges - By Kevin McMullin

As the last races of 2009 play out around the world, The focus switches to next season, and new challenges for drivers

For F1 world champion Jenson Button, the challenge is to beat last year's champion, Lewis Hamilton, at his own game, in a team built around the younger, and arguably more successful driver. For Lotus, USF1, Manor, and Campos the challenge is to make it to the grid in time and once there, reel off a string of finishes. The high places can come later. For Fernando Alonso it is to avoid looking like a total prat again when he doesn't get it all his own way at Ferrari. For Ferrari it is to regain the upper hand, for Mercedes it is to live up to last year, for Felipe Massa it is to become fit enough to compete, and for Kimi Raikkonen, it's all about mastering 300bhp of Citroen in time for the first WRC event of the season.

Thanks to Red Bull, Raikkonen will join the Elite drivers of the World Rally Championship in what is considered the best car in the championship – the C4 WRC. It remains to be seen if he will drive for the Red Bull backed works team, or a Red Bull satellite team. Raikkonen (and Kubica) is a rally fan, having competed on several events in his native Finland. Many observers from the world of F1 are expecting him to do very well, and lots of the WRC names are also expecting good results from the Finnish star. And he will get them, but don't expect him to win the first event of the season, The Rally of Sweden. Here's what he's up against.

Different Surfaces.

In F1, the track is either dry, or it's wet. In WRC the road can be loose surface (Gravel), Frozen Surface (Snow), Sealed Surface (Concrete/Tarmac), Muddy, Wet, or a mix of all of the above. Although the WRC car is much less powerful than a F1 car, the lack of traction control and the slippery surface can catch out even the most experienced driver. Racing drivers have a tendency to drive as if they're on Tarmac everywhere... They go very very quickly, then crash very very hard!

Inexperience

Sure, Kimi's been out in the woods before, but the most powerful rally car he's driven is the S2000 Fiat from last year's rally of Finland. The C4 has much more power, more technology, and will take a lot of concentration to wring the best out of. The C4 is a car that takes a lot of time to get used to. Sebastien Ogier left his JWRC C2 behind having won nearly all the rounds of the junior championship in 2008. He was installed into a C4 WRC and promptly crashed it. It took him some time through 2009 to get anything resembling a good result out of the car – and this is a driver who has done nothing but rally in the past!

The Weight of Expectation

This is huge. Kimi is a F1 world champion remember, so there will be some people (Kimi Fans, if we're honest) who will expect him to blow 5 times World Rally Champion Seb Loeb into the weeds. This simply won't happen. Seb knows his car inside out (Literally), he knows how it will react on the different surfaces, and he has been around this sport for all of his career (with two brief sojourns into the world of sportscars). It'll take a lot of effort, and a great deal of luck for a new driver to come in and beat him, no matter how good the newcomer is!

Limited Support

Kimi's going from a big team (Ferrari) to a Smaller outfit – It may say Red Bull on the Door, but the car will probably be run by Bozian. With all respect to the French outfit, the number of support per driver will be much less than Kimi's used to, and remember that once the car leaves the service it can't be touched by a mechanic until it returns. We could see Kimi picking up a spanner next year.

All the WRC drivers can change a front damper in under 10 minutes. Their 6 mechanics can change it in under 5. And as for gearboxes...

Don't underestimate the ability of good mechanics both behind the wheel or in the service park. No Ice creams for the ice man this year!

Longer Events

Okay, so an F1 event lasts 3 days. Total track time, a 2 hour race, a 1 hour qualifying session, 4 1 hour practices plus two half hour warm ups = 8 hours

WRC event can last between 3 and 4 days, days usually start around 6am, and finish around 6pm, but can go on even longer. That's 36 hours minimum of hard stage driving, mechanicing in remote services, sorting out problems, night stages (The stages are floodlit – The floodlights are on the front of the cars!), Not getting lost on the road, Traffic jams, and the small matter of doing all that whilst dodging the local wildlife, crazy spectators, not breaking any road traffic laws in a car built for speed in any conditions, and never, ever, ever, arriving either too early or too late, in anything and everything the climate can throw at them.

Kimi is also something of a rarity. Not many circuit racers, particularly from the heights of F1, jump ship to rallying. Stephane Sarrazine was the last, and he did well – but not well enough. His arrival in the WRC will surely tell us if the old stereotype of a racing driver gone rallying is true or not. He's also got stiff competition... There are currently 14 drivers I know of for next season, Plus three whose movements are a little uncertain. Loeb and Sordo will be hard to beat, particularly on tarmac, Hirvonen and Latvala hard to beat everywhere else. Petter Solberg is more than capable of springing a surprise, Ogier is coming good, Rautenbach... is terrible, Wilson isn't great but will still out do most newcomers. Villagra doesn't drive long enough to make any difference, Henning Solberg can be surprisingly good, Mads Østberg is crazy, and if Atkinson gets a drive with the newest rumoured WRC team, Monster, he could well provide serious competition. Burkart and Prokop are both level headed, but will probably be spending more time learning their cars, if they turn up at all.

 So what then of the other newcomer to the series, Ken Block. Already a rarity – an American Rally Driver – Block is a millionare playboy with a penchant for Subaru Group N rally cars. And is to all intents and purposes a pretty good driver. But he's also a total showman, and spends a lot of his time simply messing around with outrageous stunts, huge jumps, and basically being something of an attention seeking adrenaline junky. How the other competitors will see Block remains to be seen. He will need some good results before many in the championship take him seriously. For lots of people however well he does, he will still just be a rich man playing with his toys. But he could be very important for American rallying, and very important for the WRC, giving an important reaching point to a great untapped market in the USA.

The fact that only Ford sell cars in the USA (and even then not the same Focus as the one used in the WRC) makes tapping in to that market even more difficult. Next year with the change to S2000 rules, Ford will at last have a car with a global presence in the Fiesta - which will be seen in the hands of Xavier Pons and Janni Tuohino in next year's inaugural World Rally Cup.

Even so, with two big name newcomers to the series next year, and 13 of the best rallies in the world on the calendar, it could be a great year for world rallying next year. Bring it on!

 

Comments

[flood1]

Thanks for that insight Kev. I do agree that the transition from one type of racing to another is difficult. Perhaps F1 to DTM has been the best evidence of that. DTM is the most sophisticated full bodied race cars on offer. I may be wrong, but I think they are the series that comes closest to F1 amongst the full body works series. Sure, LeMans cars should be considered, but DTM races in sprint comps much as F1 does. LeMans Cars are designed for endurance as well.

F1 drivers do not really make an impression on the DTM series, and if they do, they still do not win, much less dominate.

Rally is a completly different animal and an even more difficult transition from F1 than it is to DTM. The surfaces change. Every day counts, not just Sunday. The routes are different every stage, and good notes from the co-driver are invaluable. On stage tire repairs etc. are down to the driver and his co-driver, and major repairs at base camp are often required.

I think the transiton from F1 to Rally may be the most diffuicult of all.

That being said, I think Kimi may have the talent to learn the driving techniques. I hope so, but he needs the other elements, co-driver, team, car, etc. to have any chance.

[sportsman]

A very interesting analysis.
There is no doubt in my mind about Raikkonens driving ability and outright speed.

I do wonder how he will get on in the highly disciplined world of WRC. Even being 2 mins late for anything, be it scrutineering or start of a stage results in time penalties being applied.
He also has to build an almost telepathic relationship with his co driver and they need to develop implicit trust in each others abilities.
I admire him for taking on such a task.He is an F1 WDC and as such,no matter how laconic he appears and immune to press presure,his every move will closely scrutinised.

I am looking forward to see how fares in this very difficult sport.
I wish him well

[Paul_Murtagh]

His move has been confirmed. He did impress with his speed in Finland last season, but whether he can sustain consistency over a whole season is unsure. He could be very inconsistent during his latter days in F1, and he will need to overcome this in the WRC