My target on narrow and fast tarmac roads in Germany was to take a top five position because my two-day test period was a success. The race started as I had wished. On Friday I drove smoothly without any mistakes and I was fifth by the end of the day. On stage five Gigi Galli had a bad accident which changed the stage into a road section. Also stage six was driven as a road section because of too many spectators. Stage one on Saturday morning started fine although the corners were slippery. The second stage of the morning went quite well but the third stage became my nightmare: three kilometers before the finish there was a long straight section then a crest and after that a chicane. My braking to the chicane came too late because of a slight error in my pace notes. I was going so fast I was afraid to drive straight on the hay bales so I tried to turn the car alongside the road. The rear end of the car hit the hay bales which threw the car into the field through a ditch. Luckily the car landed on its tyres but unfortunately it was stuck in the field and we needed people to push. All that took a minute and a half. The rear oil cooler was damaged and we had to fix it on the next road section. Because of that we got to the next service three minutes too late which gave us 30 seconds of time penalty. After rolling my car the race continued normally but my self confidence was gone. On the last stage of Saturday evening I was fourth and when the day was over I was ninth overall. On Sunday I had a chance to reach the seventh position but that wish was crushed on the first morning stage when one right after a jump went too wide and I landed on the pavement so hard that after a while the rear tyre went off the rim. That puncture cost us 40 minutes. The rest of the stages I just drove my own pace and finished the rally ninth. That and the whole rally left me pretty cold …
