Rally or Renault

Rally or Renault

Turun Sanomat 9.7 2010 23:26:47

Britain's GP-column 9.7.

The season's 5th F1- and WRC-weekend is more interesting now that both are on tarmac.

Kimi Räikkönen is more at home with his WRC-car and started better than ever before.

Olivier Quesnel already predicted a podium for Räikkönen in Bulgaria. His crash is a clear message of Kimi's growing pace.

In Silverstone's media center Räikkönen's flashing start doesn't create any excitement. When I told my colleagues about Bulgaria's stage times it was easy to read from the faces that they couldn't care less.

But when the talk goes into the possibility of Räikkönen coming back to F1, that hits and digs deep.

Renault has made it public that they would be interested in hiring Räikkönen beside Robert Kubica if the Finnish driver would be completely motivated. Even a salary of ten million euros could be possible now that MasterCard is becoming their big partner.

Michael Schmidt from Auto, Motor und Sport -magazine is usually very well aware of what is going on in the F1-markets and he says that he believes seriously that Räikkönen will drive for Renault in 2011.

I'm not that assured myself. From what I have heard Räikkönen likes what he is doing right now. Kimi didn't go to the rally project on a whim, he went there to study a completely different genre's secrets starting from the bottom. That's why there was no reason to expect that the rally world would "set fire".

Then what about the other suggestion that Mercedes could change Michael Schumacher into Räikkönen? Firstly it would require Schumacher's decision to stop his F1-career for the second time.

By following very closely what happens in the German camp I can tell you that Schumacher doesn't have any plans like this. He knows that he won't rise up to his former glory but he also knows that if he quits his life will again have a huge F1-sized hole.

Therefore Schumacher has taken the attitude that this is fun even though he isn't driving for the winning anymore. Bernie Ecclestone claimed that all Schumacher lacks is a winning car and if he would drive for Red Bull we would see the former Super-Schumi again.

I think Ecclestone just said it because of his job.

Silverstone/Heikki Kulta

Fonte: Turun Sanomat/Tradução para o Inglês: Nicole

É, ouviremos muito ainda desta história de Renault, Mastercard, até Kimi dizer o que fará de seu futuro. Eu, pessoalmente, acho que ele vai continuar no rali, mas vamos esperar para ver.

Beijinhos, Ice-Ludy