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Raikkonen ready to raise his pace

Ferrari Formula 1 star Kimi Raikkonen says he is ready to step his Rally Finland pace up a level on the second day

Driving his own Abarth Grande Punto, the Finn is now fourth in Group N, having passed the highly rated Patrik Flodin on the afternoon's loop around the event's base in Jyvaskyla.

"For sure, I could go faster than this, but at the moment, it doesn't make any sense," said Raikkonen. "I need to find a level and continue there.

"At the end of the day, I was trying to go a bit faster and the confidence was coming. I made two mistakes this morning: I had two overshoots, one in the second stage and one in stage four. This afternoon, there were no errors."

Raikkonen's co-driver Kaj Lindstrom added: "Everything is going really well. In some of the really high-speed places, the notes are a little more tricky, but we're not making changes to the notes; you don't need to when you make a good set straight away.

"Okay, we did change the notes in the two places where we lost time with the overshoots this morning, but apart from that nothing."

Raikkonen has not put a mark on the Punto - which has also run perfectly - through the opening leg of his first ever World Rally Championship round.

The Ferrari driver is not the F1 star in town, however, as Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel is an interested spectator and McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen is coming to watch his countryman in action tomorrow.

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