Kimi Räikkönen has had his first taste of the Citroën C4 World Rally car on a private gravel test track close to the team’s Satory workshops near Paris.

The shakedown allowed the Finn to start getting used to the car he will drive in the 2010 World Rally championship yet only a few weeks before the season gets under way in Sweden on February12.

The 2007 Formula 1 World champion also toured Citroën Racing’s facilities.

“I very much enjoyed meeting the team properly for the first time,” he said. “It was good to try out a few things and I was very interested to see how the car reacted to settings changes. Now, I’m really keen to get back behind the wheel of the C4 again!”

Räikkönen’s first competitive outing will be on January 28 when he competes in the Arctic Lapland Rally in a Citroën C4 WRC to prepare for the Swedish Rally, round one of the 2010 World Rally championship.