This race was driven in Conceptión some 500 kilometres north of Santiago. The forests reminded of those in Finland, lots of conifers. Hard surfaces on stages but perhaps even more loose gravel than in Finland. Chile was a mixture of Finland, Wales and even Australia. After Argentina I felt really good which made us fly at the beginning of this new race. We took the fastest time right away. The stages were pretty slippery due to last weeks’ rainy weathers. The reccé was foggy and difficult. Our notes were good though and our Friday went well. There was only one spin but we were third after Friday. I tried to maintain my position on Saturday but Sebastien Loeb started to push and I could not find enough pace. The grip was better and the roads were cleaner but I just could not quite get it going. I drove too aggressively, the tires wore down  and finally there was some fog making the road wet and spoiling the visibility. I tried to push in those bad conditions. Unfortunately, I had not seen a rock during the reccé and we cut and hit it. It broke the suspension and we had to retire after being third. A new start on Sunday aiming for points on power stage. We got three extra points there but the rest of the rally otherwise was just more or less driving through.

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I was really motivated to come here after the sad Rally Corsica. Now it was time to improve everything. Last time here I had to retire right at the beginning because I broke the engine after hitting a rock, the oil pipe split in two. I was very eager to succeed  and to make a good result here this year. It had been raining heavily the previous week and the roads and the stages were flooding and they were very muddy. On Friday they had to cancel one stage. My driving started well and our position was good until we had a puncture on Friday afternoon. I didn’t lose much time but after that I drove too cautiously and span which meant some 40 seconds’ time lost. On Saturday I was able to improve my driving all day and I felt good. My times were closer to the top three which gave me more self confidence. Sunday was a very good day for us. We were able to reach the fifth position and on power stage we were second best and got four extra points. Ogier was fastest but only by 0,01 seconds. We left  Rally Argentina with a good feeling.

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