News and quotes SS 15

The short, sharp 12.17 km Knaus Tabbert test opened the final day of the Central European Rally in beautiful German autumnal sunshine. Following two days of tricky wet-dry conditions the World Rally Championship crews believed that they could look forward to a relatively straightforward run but drama quickly ensued. Toyota’s rally leader Sébastien Ogier went straight on at one corner and dropped seven seconds in his recovery, dropping to second place. His team-mate Sami Pajari crashed out of the final day at the 5.1km mark, taking too much speed into a tightening left-hand bend. Championship leader, Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, believed that the cause was the removal and repositioning of anti-cut devices on the stage, whether by accident or mischief, which made the road surface dirty and their carefully-crafted pace notes inaccurate. Another casualty was Hyundai’s restarting Andreas Mikkelsen, who picked up a puncture and was mystified as to its cause. The big winner was M-Sport Ford driver Adrien Fourmaux, restarting after going out on Saturday, who won the stage. Meanwhile Ogier’s misfortune meant that Hyundai’s Ott Tänak holds a narrow lead as he bids to keep the drivers’ World championship crown in sight.

#16 Adrien Fourmaux (FRA) / Alexandre Coria (FRA), Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid

“It was a really nice flowing stage so that’s quite nice, it was really clean also so really nice to enjoy the stage and at least this time the car is working. The feeling is okay – to be fair it’s full dry now but it’s okay..”

#9 Andreas Mikkelsen (NOR) / Torstein Eriksen (NOR) Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid

“I don’t know – puncture after some kilometres. When I changed (the wheel) I saw there was like a small side cut on the tyre so… shit. I mean, we’re in the cuts when we can cut, try to be as close as possible to the (anti-cut) boxes as we can on the inside like we’ve been all weekend. I don’t know..”

#19 Jourdan Serderidis (GRE) / Frédéric Miclotte (BEL) Ford Puma Rally1 (non-Hybrid)

“It’s not a good start for me. Andreas didn’t pass? He passed. We had a message that he stopped and then we didn’t get the info on the dash for the virtual chicane so a lot of distracting things.”

#13 Grégoire Munster (LUX) / Louis Louka (BEL), Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid

“Not such a good stage for me, I was hesitating a lot. We did a drastic change on service yesterday and changing the balance quite a lot and I need to get used to it. Something with the differentials.”

#18 Takamoto Katsuta (JPN) / Aaron Johnson (IRL), Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid

“It’s really sorry for Sami but at this speed it can happen. He did a fantastic job, for sure he will be fine. He has done a very good job so pretty shame, nothing else to say.”

#11 Thierry Neuville (BEL) / Martijn Wydaeghe (BEL), Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid

“If I see the conditions in there I don’t want to push too much to be honest. Many surprises, lots of surprises, we had one big slide immediately on the beginning because it was full of gravel. But even towards the end all the anti-cuts somehow have moved and some are even removed and that’s not nice. It’s the anti-cuts have been probably by some spectators or just a tiny bit and everybody’s able to cut and so the road is dirty.”

#33 Elfyn Evans (GBR) / Scott Martin (GBR), Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid

“It went okay… tricky. Just had to judge how bad it is. In here the loose seems particularly slippery in places, not so bad in others.” 

#8 Ott Tänak (EST) / Martin Järveoja (EST), Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid

“Dirty surprises. Let’s see, it’s very challenging conditions at the moment we need to do better probably. We try to be racy.”

#17 Sébastien Ogier (FRA) / Vincent Landais (FRA), Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid

“What happened at the start there was a lock-up for us and we went straight. All okay. It’s how it is.”

#22 Nikolay Gryazin (BUL) / Konstantin Aleksandrov (ANA), Citroën C3 Rally2

“I don’t know just driving the same pace. Nice and flow, not just risking, just smoothly and slowed down too much on the virtual chicane again.”

#20 Oliver Solberg (SWE) / Elliott Edmondson (GBR), Škoda Fabia RS Rally2

“Tricky – a lot of gravel which was unexpected. It was a clean stage but not really attack.”

#30 Filip Mareš (CZE) / Ravovan Bucha (CZE), Toyota GR Yaris Rally2

“Honestly I enjoyed the stage. It’s the first time in my career four consecutive days I am driving rally cars so I am really enjoying and finally the stage was quite consistent in terms of condition so I enjoyed it.”

#5 Sami Pajari (FIN) / Enni Mälkönen (FIN), Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 Hybrid

“So far still I don’t know really what happened. Okay, it’s clear to see that we went a bit too wide on the corner and we rolled quite softly but actually the damage is not so bad on the car so maybe we could continue but I think in this case it’s making no sense to secure that we make and more damage. So it’s quite shame. Really soft roll but but I don’t know actually why it happened in my opinion there was nothing wrong with my pace notes was okay and there was nothing really surprising on that corner so simply for the moment I have no idea why (I crashed).”