Raikkonen keen for ‘fun’ rally return

Kimi Raikkonen is keen to return to rallying “for fun” after his Formula 1 career is over.

The 32-year-old Finn has no plans to walk away from grand prix racing and has impressed on his comeback after two years competing in the World Rally Championship.

But when his time in F1 does come to an end in the future, he wants to try his hand at rallying again.

“I will do it for fun,” Raikkonen told AUTOSPORT. “The one reason why I wanted to do it in the first place was to see if I can do it or not.

“I’m a big fan of it and I always thought it was so difficult that I wanted to see what happens.

“I still want to improve in it and try to do well. It’s something that, when I’m a bit older, I can do and have fun with. I will definitely do it when I have more time.

“I enjoy both [rallying and F1]. I would like to do both of them at the same time but because of timetables, schedules and other reasons it’s not possible.”

Raikkonen denied the suggestion that his return to F1 was indicative that he has lost interest in rallying.

He was keen to contest Rally Finland earlier this year but was prevented from doing so by his Lotus team.

But Raikkonen did admit that he missed the wheel-to-wheel aspect of racing.

“It’s not that I lost interest in rallying,” said Raikkonen. “It’s just that I’ve always raced in my life and when you race against each other it’s different to just doing times.

“I enjoy racing against people. It’s why I came back, to have a fight against others.

“It’s completely different to last year in rallying. When I did NASCAR [in 2011] I enjoyed it a lot and even though it is very different to F1, it’s still racing against each other.

“I had a good time. I kind of missed it [racing].”

Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/formula-one-news/f1-formula-one-news/raikkonen-keen-for-fun-rally-return

Jim Hall Duncan Hamilton Lewis Hamilton David Hampshire Sam Hanks