It’s nothing new to suggest that Kimi Raikkonen didn’t exactly dazzle everyone in the two years he spent rallying. But because of the relative lack of competition in the WRC compared to Formula 1, it’s not a given that his 2012 season will be much of an improvement on the last couple.

Raikonen’s WRC record

You see, even though he was a bit rubbish at rallying, the sheer lack of entrants in the WRC meant that on paper Raikkonen actually did all right. He scored 25 points in 2010, and 34 in 2011, finishing 10th in the overall standings both years.

Let’s put that in context, though. In 2010 Federico Villagra finished ahead of Raikkonen in the standings having entered four fewer rallies; in 2011 Dani Sordo did the same with three fewer rallies. In 2010, no-one below Raikkonen in the final standings did anything like a full season; in 2011 he finished 9th of the 12 championship regulars.

But that doesn’t change the points he scored.

Meanwhile in F1

On returning to the sport where he was crowned world champion, the least you’d expect is that Raikkonen would score more points than he did in the sport where he was just a bit crashy. So that’s 34 points in a single season, or 59 points in total. Either would seem reasonable as a target for 2012.

Looking at 2010 and 2011, that sort of level is about 10th in the overall standings. And since that’s where he finished in both his WRC seasons, that seems like a good target.

Now, we’ve no idea yet how competitive the Lotus will turn out to be. But going on resources alone, it seems unlikely that the top four teams – Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes – will be bothered. Which leaves only two spaces in the top ten.

If Lotus continues to follow the downward trend set by Renault last year, then they will be overtaken by Force India. So Raikkonen seems likely to be in a four-way fight – at least – for the last couple of top ten places with his team mate Romain Grosjean, and those talented chaps at Force India, Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg.

Conclusion

Nope, it’s definitely not going to be a trivial task for Raikkonen to improve on his WRC results. But Robert Kubica finished 8th with 136 points for Renault in 2010, so it’s not unachievable. He’s just got to want it.

Photo Credit
*nog – Flickr – Some rights reserved