Rallying

Phil: I admit, in my younger days I was every bit as much a fan of rallying as I was (and still am) of F1.

But that was in the glory days of Kankunnen, Sainz, McRae and Makkinen, when rallying was on terrestrial TV, and before it became more than a little predictable, with Sebastien Loeb's unbroken run of eight world championships. I haven't watched a rally in nearly a decade, but I searched out BBC Wales' coverage of the Wales Rally GB online.

The rally, the last this WRC season, was actually won by Ford's no 2 Jari-Matti Latvala, in a Fiesta (the new formula restricts engine capacity to 1.6 litres - gone are the days of turbocharged Lancia Deltas and Subaru Imprezas) after all his main rivals, including Loeb, dropped out. Among the retirements was a very familiar name - none other than 2007 F1 champion, Kimi Raikkonen.

Raikkonen, who may be on his way back to F1 after an unimpressive 10th place in this year's championship, featured but briefly in the coverage, a shot of him standing by his 'parked' Citroen DS3 - parked in a ditch on a Welsh forest track with a knackered radiator.

He was holding an A4 piece of laminated card with the word 'OK' in green writing, presumably a safety measure designed to inform later drivers there was no need to stop.

I wonder what the one with brown writing on says?