Raikkonen's unlucky slip

Kimi Raikkonen will not be too downhearted by his early exit from Rally Mexico and is determined to keep on learning as he continues his education in the sport following his move from Formula One. The Finn's ambitions of scoring points in the second round of the World Rally Championship were scuppered after a crash on stage seven sufficiently damaged his Citroen Junior car as to make it impossible for him to continue.

The 2007 Formula One world champion said of the incident: "It was very unlucky: the car just slid wide at the end of the stage in a slippery braking area, so we clipped the side of the road and rolled a few times. "I had hoped for some good things from this rally, but this was only my seventh event and I am still learning. It's normal that when you are learning anything you can get caught out by something and this is what happened to me," he said.

Petter Solberg led after the opening day, ahead of Sebastien Ogier and Sebastien Loeb. The BP Abu Dhabi Ford pairing of Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen were in fifth and sixth ahead of the second leg, which was due to take place last night. gcaygill@thenational.ae