Räikkönen’s experienced co-driver Kaj Lindström commented after SS9 that the difference to Sordo was 0.9 seconds per kilometer, and at the same time stated that the duo knew they were going slowed than they could – partly because the car setting still wasn’t 100% adapted to Räikkönen’s preferences. Even Kimi himself said at the that he didn’t think it would be very difficult to drive faster, since he knew that the car wasn’t really as he wanted it to be.

Personally, I think Räikkönen got a good and really impressive start. An early off was probably just good for him, since that showed him exactly were the limit was and it also took the overall placement totally off his shoulders. With nothing to fight for in the rally, Kimi could put his focus just on improving his own driving and the car while still having the possibility to compare himself to others, stage by stage.

What I doubt a little bit more is the easiness of going faster. Kimi seems perfectly comfortable by being slower as he knows it’s “the car settings’ fault”. That’s probably perfectly true, but that’s also half the challenge in rallying. You must get a good setup of the car that works from stage to stage. Of course F1 is also much about fine tuning of car settings, but the conditions there are often a little bit more stable. In rallying you’re driving for a longer time and over longer distances, and conditions may vary much or extremely much (Rally Monte Carlo is the perfect example). That’s a part of the challenge and shouldn’t be underestimated.

However, to sum it up I’m really impressed by Kimi’s performance – and it will be a big pleasure to see his developments throughout the season. Go Kimi!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Besides that, there are now quite a few clips flourishing of his tests with Citroen. His first test in France is available on the website, or in this YouTube video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here are also some new stuff from Kimi’s tests in Finland this week:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to Iceman Media, KimiF1st and MadCowYuuko for the clips. I guess more will follow, but the best way if you wanna keep track of everything is to do a YouTube search yourself…

Petter Solberg is testing his Citroen C4WRC near Torsby in Värmland today. Photo: PSWRT

Petter Solberg just updated his blog with the following quote:

- Just did the first run, and this car is just unbelieveable! It’s totally different from the car I had last year. I mean, the balance is so good and the grip is amazing. Just one thing to say now; Rally Sweden – here I come!

It’s interesting to see that Petter is so happy immediately, since it means that he maybe really have managed to get the right stuff out of the Citroën factory – something that almost no privateer has previously managed to do. Citroën have always been very keen of protecting their works drivers from concurrence by providing engine mappings and parts that has obviously been not as good as the works stuff. Ask Petter about last year, Manfred Stohl, Daniel Carlsson and many other people…

If Petter has the right stuff – he can finally become a contender again and maybe be one of the guys on top in the championship. That would be an amazing boost to the WRC. However, still that’s just dreams, but let’s hope for more good reports from Petter.

Solberg expects to have his budget complete in the end of next week, and announce his team and sponsors after that. Until then, read todays announcement here.

Besides Petter’s entry, the list contains no big surprises. However, Polish driver Michal Solowow is entered in a Peugeot 207 S2000 – something that has been rumoured but as far as I know not confirmed until now. A lot of names should still come in the entry list – the time expires tomorrow at 15PM local time for WRC entries.

Read the current entry list here (external link)

If it does, I wouldn’t complain… Nothing is better for rallying than stars with already big names entering the sport. However, I think Kovalainen would have to watch out – none of the F1 guys will have an easy ride in a brand new car and in a so different sport. Probably they would both be happy not to be in the same class – so they at least don’t have to be compared to each other…

In January this year, the European Union (EU) decided to put a few new names to their list of people in Zimbabwe imposed with sanctions from the union. One of them was Muller Conrad Rautenbach, more known as Billy Rautenbach, and father of the current WRC driver Conrad Rautenbach (actually Billy Rautenbach took part in some rallies himself in the 80′s). The sanction list was initially created in 2002, intended to weaken the Mugabe regime and his Zanu-PF party by travel bans and freezing economic resources of members and financers of the regime. In a statement, EU says that the measures against the people on their list is the result of “the break down of the rule of law and human rights abuses”.

A similar list is maintained in the US by the US Department of the Treasury, a list to which Billy Rautenbach was added in November 2008. US Treasure states that Rautenbach “has provided support to senior regime officials during Zimbabwe’s intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo and also provided logistical support for large-scale mining projects in Zimbabwe that benefit a small number of corrupt officials there”. The authority further says that “The Mugabe regime continues to resist the call of the Zimbabwean people to loosen its corrupt and violent hold on power”.

So, what’s behind all this?

After some basic research you can find out that Billy Rautenbach lived in South Africa until the end of the 90′s. He was a quite successful businessman running the Hyundai dealer, having exclusive deals for selling Volvo and Saab in sub-Sahara and the continent’s biggest transportation company – Wheels of Africa. He was also involved in the selling of Jas-Gripen, a Swedish made military jet plane, to the South African government. But something went wrong, Hyundai went into trouble – and so did Rautenbach. He got accused for a list of different crimes, got into the list of 20 most wanted criminals in South Africa and was investigated for briberies – but seemed to have good cover. In one case Billy Rautenbach’s lawyer met up with Thabo Mbeki’s (South African president) Commissioner of Police and gave him 40 000 USD to have the corruption charges against Rautenbach dropped – an offer the comissioner accepted. Mbeki also sacked the National Prosecution Authority boss and arrested a policeman investigating the case with the commissioner’s bribe on charges of “perverting the course of justice to protect Billy Rautenbach against investigations.

However, reading on UNHCR’s website Refworld – intended as a tool for refugee decision support – you can see that Rautenbach gave up and fled South Africa to a farm outside Harare (in Zimbabwe) in 1999, because of the accusations against him, including theft, bribery and fraud. He was described in 2002 by the UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Kongo as a man “whose personal and professional integrity is doubtful”, after a two years as manager of Congo’s state-owned mining company, Gecamines – appointed as a thank for Zimbabwe’s military support going into the Second Congo War. However, in 2000 Rautenbach was replaced in the role as managing director – after a report that a network of prominent people had transferred assets worth at least 5 billion USD from the state-mining company to private companies. Billy Rautenbach was named as one of the plunderers in the report, but he denied and made a statement that the accusations were totally unfounded. No matter what, Billy Rautenbach have been pronounced persona non grata (not wanted person) in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

What does this have to do with Conrad Rautenbach’s WRC drive?

I don’t know who’s paying for Conrad Rautenbach’s WRC drive, but I think it’s easy to suspect that the money going into Citroen from him doesn’t have the brightest history. I’ve not seen any major sponsors behind his drive, and a simple guess is that money from his fathers empire pay for his drive. To know what’s true and what’s false regarding Billy Rautenbach is really hard, but it’s easy to see that his business is really dubious. His involvement in war’s and corruption seems quite evident and considering he’s on both EU’s and US Treasure’s lists of sanctions – it’s certain that he even now may have a role as financer for the undemocratic regime in Zimbabwe.

All this makes me suspect that the money backing Conrad Rautenbach’s WRC operation has been indirectly stolen from the African people by corrupted transfers initiated by undemocratic forces. And worst of all it makes me suspect that Conrad’s financer have also been financing parts of the worst war in modern African history, killing 5.4 million people. I don’t judge Conrad Rautenbach – he is just his father’s son and can’t do much about it – and I don’t even know if his father really is paying the drive. But if Citroen has any interest in human rights, my opinion is that Citroen should deeply investigate where the money that pays Conrad’s WRC season comes from and verify that those money have other sources than Conrad’s father’s dubious business. Just suspicions regarding this type of things is a shame to the championship and the sport.

Here is the list of people imposed by EU’s sanctions against Zimbabwe:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:023:0043:0059:EN:PDF

Here is US Treasury’s summary of the sanctions concerning Zimbabwe:
http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/programs/zimbabwe/zimb.shtml

If you want to read more on the subject, here are more information sources:

UNHCR RefWorld – Robert Mugabe’s money men
Position of the European Union on sanctions against Zimbabwe
European Parliament resolution on human rights in Zimbabwe
Daily Telegraph – Business and morality – Is Phil Edmonds right to trade with Robert Mugabe?
SW Radio Africa – The web of corrupt Practice and Politics in the region
AfDevInfo on Billy Rautenbach
MNET – Crook or crucified
Wikipedia, Second Congo War

It became a weekend exactly as expected as anyone could fear in Ireland. Loeb first and Sordo second. Hirvonen trying to challenge – but ending up in third and Jari-Matti Latvala failed to finish. One of the few surprises was that Pirellis Sottozero winter-tyres in many situations proved to be better suited to the conditions than the tarmac tyres because of the extremely heavy rain. Once again, tyre choices on tarmac proved crucial – but in the end of the first day everyone had learnt about the Sottozero advantage – and everything was back to normal in the results table.

Before the rally I hoped that Chris Atkinson would show new strength landing in a new car – the Citroen C4 WRC. Partially he did, as he showed some good speed on the second day. However, he also proved that he wants too much by making two off road excursions. One was a really serious high-speed accident on day one where the crew should be really happy to escape uninjured – and one happened on the last day. The later one was really a disappointment, since it happened while Atko was battling Henning Solberg for fourth place. Looking back in Atkinson’s records he has gone off way too many times while battling for places. By now, he really should have learnt to keep high speed while staying exactly within the limit. However, I still hope that Atko can get the finances ready for more rallies to show his speed. Subaru was a really bad car and it’s not easy to get into a new car and deliver immediately – especially not in the Irish conditions this weekend – so he should get a few chances more. Atko himself named Greece and Australia as possible rallies to drive.

Unfortunately, also Urmo Aava proved to be the same old Urmo as ever. He is really fast and for a short while in the beginning he led the rally. I hoped for him to stay on the road, but already on SS6 he ended up somewhere off the stage. He got back into the rally an ended 10th, but that doesn’t mean too much. I don’t know why it happens, but now that Urmo has a fast car to drive for almost a whole season he really needs to switch focus. He should start off slow (many others go embarassingly slow, so why not him?) and then slowly increase the speed until he reaches that limit where he can’t go faster without going off. Everyone in the business knows that he can be fast – but everyone also knows that he rarely stays on the road. I think he could do really good results even if he stayed at 98-99% of his capacity – and then with much lower risk to go off.

Luckily, Rally Ireland also offered some small but still good surprises. Reigning JWRC champion Sebastien Ogier only did his second rally in a WRC car but managed to finish sixth, scoring three championship points. Even though Ogier wasn’t very fast I consider this very promising. If he can manage to score sixth place in his second WRC rally, there should be no problem finding the speed when he has collected some more WRC experience. But by finishing such a difficult rally as Ireland, he shows a mature and serious approach. In two weeks Ogier has scored an IRC win in difficult Monte Carlo and then a sixth place in Ireland – which is a really, really impressive performance.

Second happy surprise was Henning Solberg, finishing the rally just outside the podium. Henning has consistently been a catastrophe on tarmac, but on the gravel-like bumpy tarmac in Ireland he found his pace. With the new, top-spec Ford Focus he managed to do some okay stagetimes and most important he stayed cold in the battle with Chris Atkinson. After seeing Henning do such a decent result on tarmac, you can’t keep from wondering what he will be up to in Norway in two weeks? I’ve seen him on snow a number of times – and even since I don’t consider Henning top notch WRC material I think he can really battle for the win in Norway. I would be really, really surprised if he didn’t beat Petter – at least if he manages to stay on the road with an intact car. We’ll see in two weeks – in a rally that hopefully is a little bit less predictable than Ireland…

In this video you can see an interview, the test with and even Atkinson taking notes for the test:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Atkinson himself, who has previously spent all his WRC career in a Subaru, was really impressed by the Citroen. We’ve heard it before regarding both the C4 and the Xsara, that you can attack hard into turns and still have very good control and balance of the car – facts that Atkinson immediately agreed on and told the journalists.

Looking forward to Ireland, Atkinson is probably happy to have done a full day of testing on roads that he thought were representative of the roads back in Ireland. The last time he went out of a rally car before that was in Wales, were he crashed badly and was transfered by helicopter to hospital – luckily unhurt though. Anyway, it must have been a psychological relief for him to manage to do some good testing between the accident and the rally – especially considering what happened with Subaru and that he’s now getting into a totally new car for him. After all the years struggling in problematic Subaru, it will also be really, really interesting to all of us to see how Atkinson can perform in Citroen.

Finally, just as a parenthesis, I think it seems more and more obvious that Atkinson is not planning to do just one rally in Citroen. Considering the fact that he’s launching a new website soon, he has started a Citroen branded YouTube user, he promotes the Australian Citroen dealer in his YouTube movie and other things – it seems unlikely he would do everything just because of a one-time rally. If he’s not doing a full season (except Norway) in the C4 – I at least expect that all rallies he manages to start in this season will be in the Citroen.