Sunday 5 August 2012

Rally - MacCrone Finnish-es Fifth


Elfyn Evans won the WRC Academy Rally Finland event yesterday, but lying sixth after the Friday run, John MacCrone and Stuart Loudon finished fifth in their Ford Fiesta at the end of one of their biggest career challenges to date.

On Friday night, John said: ”We had two bad runs through Lankamaa – experiencing a heavy impact on the front left corner both times. We continued, but were cautious of a potential puncture losing over 40 seconds overall from the two runs.”

”I was impressed with our consistent pace over the stages today, it is so fast out there and there are some very big jumps! The car has been great all day, standing up to the challenging conditions. It is really all about the experience we can gain from this event and getting the car to the finish, but a top 5 finish would be a massive bonus from this historic rally and anything higher would be a dream result!”

After the rally was over, a relieved and delighted John added: “We said before the start of the rally that we would be happy with a top five finish and we take away fifth place. We were in the mix pretty much all of today, apart from two stages. I do not really understand where we lost the time, maybe our pace notes where a little cautious.”

“We always knew this would be a difficult event, and are delighted that we can take away strong points towards the championship. It was all about learning and gaining experience on this event and we certainly did that. The stages where exceptionally fast, but great fun. We will come back here next year and hopefully be able to challenge for a podium finish. This result was a great confidence boost ahead of Germany in a few weeks time.”

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