Temperature was over 30 celsius degrees for all the weekend and special stages takes place over 2000 metres above sea level these circumstances requires a lot from the car. Last year we had engine over heating problems and unfotunately we weren’t able solve all those for this year.

Our car had improved a lot from last year but still we had technical problems caused by engine over heating. From my car battery recharger broke up and Ott Tänak had turbo problem.

With Sisu we were able to reach eight place and from the Power Stage we got four bonus points. Sebastien Ogier won the rally, Dani Sordo was second and Kris Meeke was third. Sebastien Loeb was the rank outsider and he reached fourth place at the end. Loeb even lead the rally on saturday.

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Our last year victory didn’t help us in this year rally. On the first day of the rally there were rained lot of snow and those snowy roads it was very hard to find the good grip when we were third on the road. For the later road positions ruts were deeper and the grip was lot better.

I wasn’t able to find the good setup and feeling for driving in the whole weekend. I was mainly driving that rally through and at the end we were 7th. Thierry Neuville won the rally, Graig Breen second and Andreas Mikkelsen was third.

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Legendary special stage Sisteron started rally at thursday evening. It was driven in opposite direction compared to earlier years that meant that we need to survive 4 km icy road to downhill at the dark. Everyone decided to go with slick tires and there were lot of action. I spinned twice but many others were stucked in the snow banks. I was 40 seconds behind the lead. After that I decided to drive calm and steady. Saturday was the toughest day of the rally, it rained 15 cm slush snow and roads weren’t cleaned, there were very tricky conditions for the wide studed tires. I got very bad memories back in 2013 at the Col de Turini when we went off quite heavily in this kind of conditions. I was able to stay calm and ended up to the third place after saturday. I was able to keep that position and we reached two bonus points from the Power Stage.

Sebastien Ogier won the rally and my new team mate Ott Tänak was second.

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