Kimi Raikkonen's Future Revealed: Rallying for Citroen's Junior Team

Kim Raikkonen, the 30-year-old 2007 World Champion, will be rallying next season for Citroen's junior rally team in the WRC.

The Finn has signed a one year deal with Citroen's Red Bull backed junior team. This would give Citroen a great boost, having the greatest driver in Rallying in their main team, Sebastian Loeb, and an ex-F1 World Champion.

Kimi will team up with fellow compatriot Kaj Lindstrom as his co-driver, who previously partnered multiple rally champion Tommi Makinen.

"I always wanted to compete in rally, especially in the World Rally Championship at some point in my career," said Raikkonen, who impressed on his debut at the Rally Finland, earlier this year. "Thanks to Red Bull, I have the opportunity to drive the best car of the series with the Citroen C4."

Citroen team boss Olivier Quesnel as released a statement about Citroen's future.

"We will continue to count on Sebastien and Dani to defend our world titles in 2010. We will also be prolonging our association with Sebastien Ogier who showed outstanding potential this year.

"Last but not least, it is with immense joy that we welcome Kimi Raikkonen to our ranks. We are very proud he has chosen Citroen."

Raikkonen will contest 12 out of 13 events, as the team are not entered into the New Zealand Rally.

Raikkonen has said he will return to F1, but only if he is offered a seat in a title winning car, stating, "We will see what happens in the future."

Raikkonen is taking a sabbatical after Spaniard Fernando Alonso was given his seat at Ferrari, and Kimi failed to secure a seat at his old team, McLaren, who took the 2009 World Champion Jensen Button instead.

The question is now, however, is whether many Raikkonen fan's will begin watching more Rallying to see if their can man perform as well as he has done in F1.