Ireland's
Craig Breen and Cumbria's Scott Martin scored the result of their lives at the
weekend when they finished 2nd overall in Sweden on this year's second round of
the FIA World Rally Championship. Unfortunately, the Citroën Total Abu
Dhabi team pairing provided the only good news from the
'home' crews.
In winning the event, Thierry Neuville became only the third
non-Nordic driver to win the WRC's solitary pure winter rally and end an
agonising 12-month wait after crashing out of a comfortable lead last year.
Breen grabbed second place on Saturday
morning when Andreas Mikkelsen spun and despite the fervent attentions of the
Norwegian's Hyundai, Breen kept his cool to hold him off by just 8.5sec at the
finish.
Kris Meeke had a torrid time. Running fourth on the road, and
hampered by clearing snow for the later runners, Kris suffered a fairly
innocuous impact with a snow bank which damaged the turbo of his C3 WRC. That
meant retirement for the day resuming the competition under Rally 2 rules.
On the other hand, Craig was delighted, saying at the finish: “I'm
absolutely on top of the world! It has been an incredible weekend. I have
always really enjoyed this rally in the past, but I have to say that I
surprised myself this weekend in that I was able to fight at the front throughout
the race, without making any mistakes. I used to think that quick rallies
weren't suited to me, but that doesn't seem to be the case any more. In any
event, my C3 WRC was perfect here and it's great to secure this result for the
team – the guys have worked really hard for this."
It would therefore be just a bit too easy to claim that those
running later on the road had an unfair advantage over those at the front. Of
course those conditions did indeed hamper the front runners, but given the nature
of the terrain and the changing surfaces, those who did benefit from 'cleaner'
roads still had to make the most of the opportunity and not fall off or fall
victim to snowbanks.
Elfyn said: "It’s not been the easiest of weekends. It’s probably fair to say that we were struggling for some pace through the early stages, but then when the puncture set us back we didn’t have any chance with the road position. It’s certainly not the weekend we wanted, so we just need to put it behind us and look forward to Mexico."
At the finish there was apparently a wee bit of 'team management' when Elfyn unfortunately incurred a time penalty which dropped him behind his team mate in the Final Results. Ogier also contrived to 'hang back' on the approach to the final 'Power Stage' so that he wasn't first on the road. The ploy obviously worked as he was second quickest, picking up a valuable 4 extra points although he has now dropped to second place in the WRC title chase behind new leader Neuville.
Rally Sweden (Torsby):
Final Results:
Final Results:
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