Co-driver Miikka Anttila.
Rally started catastrophicly. On road section to first stage, car engine started to malfunction and it continued during first stage. A little before halfway it stopped altogether. After really serious hunt we found the problem. Fault was in ECU, which was full of water. We suspected it was result of yesterday´s car wash. We lost time over 20 minutes and we dropped to the last in the race. After that we just tried to drive good stage times and made it too in some of them.
On Sunday we made a fatal tyre choice. We presumed there is ice in road and we chose studded tyres in the front and slicks to the rear. When the road was dry, I drove too hard to tight curve and we hit slightly the cliff wall and broke front suspension. Irritating end to this difficult rally.
Retirement SS12
Ford Puma.
Service team Astra.
Rally engineer Esko Reiners