Co-driver: Miikka Anttila
The previous rally on tarmac in Germany was very difficult for me which was why I was allowed to practice driving on that kind of surface on track in Alastaro with Olli Haapalainen. Haapalainen has won Finnish championship in Sport 2000 many times. The rally in Catalonia started on Friday morning when the roads were slippery after the rain. And there was some fog, too. It was really hard to trust the driving but the most important thing was that I was able to drive through the slippery stages. We were number nine before the first service. In the afternoon the roads started to dry out and I was able to try the methods I had learned from Olli Haapalainen. Before the last stage on Friday I rose to the seventh position. It started raining on that last stage on Friday and I was a bit exited because our tires were for dry roads (like everyone else’s tires) but my driving was best ever on wet surface and I could increase my lead to Chris Atkinson. It was eleven seconds now. On Saturday I tried to drive like on track and as steadily as possible because the roads were wider and faster than on Friday. Of course I also tried to drive as fast as I could without risks. The driving went smoothly the whole day. We made a punch of good times but there were a couple of situations on the way when breaking all of a sudden was slippery. On Saturday evening we were still number seven, 26,8 seconds ahead Atkinson. On Sunday my plan was to drive in a sensible way and test new tires for Corsica. The day went as planned and the new tires felt right. That was so far my best rally on tarmac, me being seventh.
7th
Car: Ford Focus WRC -06
Service Team: Stobart