"Second purgatory" by Heikki Kulta

Second purgatory

Turun Sanomat 21.5 2011 22:35:25 - Column 21.5.

Lets go ten years back in time. Kimi Räikkönen, 21, flew for the first time in his life outside Europe and got to start his F1-career in Australia 2001 with a trial license since he had the least experience of small formulas of all times.

"Good heavens, what will come from it" the critical F1-world sighed beforehand quoting Antero Mertaranta's poetry. (Finnish commentator in icehockey)

There came immediately a 6th position in a GP and Räikkönen cashed in all his promises at once.

On Friday night in Charlotte those exciting times came back to my mind. Once again Rookie-Räikkönen was a complete rookie out in the world. The Nascar-people did however welcome the F1-champion but nobody believed that the serie's first Finn driver of all times could do anything else but fail.

Good heavens, what will come from it this time...

It was a year and a half since Räikkönen had raced on tracks and USA's ovals cannot exactly be even compared to normal racing tracks. And Kimi didn't have more than four private testing days under his belt.

He had none whatsoever experience of what it's like to go flatout in a wide line and how it affects the car's behaviour when another car drives side by side.

The American motorsport-fans got to experience the same that the F1-society experienced in March 2001. Räikkönen got the job done in full style. And he got immediately the competitors' respect because of his fair rudeness, which is Kimi's familiar business card in track-races.

15th position might not sound grand but when you have 35 more or less experienced Nascar-drivers on the same track, an almost mistake-free performance under these pressures to show, the value of it rises up high.

It's always easier the second time, like Räikkönen reminded after the race.

Camping Truck is Nascar's third class. If you look for a similarity from the F1-side then it could possibly be Formula 2. Nationwide is Räikkönen's next address and that again is a tougher class - in F1-comparison maybe somewhere around GP2.

During the beginning of his F1-career Räikkönen got invaluable help from Sauber's experienced Race Engineer Jacky Eeckelaart. Now Nascar's current superstar Kyle Busch is helping him on his Nascar-road by taking care of the rookie's car setups like they were his own.

Busch didn't however bend his habits in the race. He got his 97th Nascar win added to his list of merits. In F1 it would require that the driver would continuously drive all F1-, GP2- and GP3-races.

Turun Sanomat, Charlotte - HEIKKI KULTA

Fonte: Turun Sanomat/Tradução para o Inglês: Nicole

Heikki deu um show de cobertura este fim de semana. Para variar. Este ano ele definitivamente tem escolhido estar ao lado de Kimi e coberto a F1 quando o Iceman não está em ação. E eu só tenho a agradecer a ele por isto.

Só para acrescentar ao excelente texto dele, digo, a vida definitivamente é um ciclo. O que quero dizer é que tanto no WRC quanto na Nascar, Kimi está cercado de pessoas dispostas a ajudar, que acreditam no talento dele, como aconteceu quando ele chegou à F1, há uma década. E estas voltas dadas pela vida nos ajudam a continuar.

Beijinhos, Ludy

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