What do you think of your results so far this year?“I’d say that our results are what we expected; or maybe slightly better than we expected. When we came into this year, we knew that it was not going to be easy and it would take us some time to adapt and of course this has been the case.
If you consider that everyone else has got so much more experience than us and we had not even done five rallies before the start of the year, it’s not too bad.
Sweden was a tricky event for us to start the year with as the grip kept on changing but then we found it a bit more normal on gravel in Mexico. Jordan was a really tricky rally but we were very pleased to take our first points, and then we had Turkey where we finished fifth, which was a great result.
After Turkey we missed Rally New Zealand and then we had Portugal, which was difficult for us because it took a little bit of time to get into the rhythm again. When we went to Bulgaria I had a good feeling on asphalt and if we had not had an accident, then I think we could have been in the top five.”
How about Finland?
“Actually, Finland was the same sort of story as Bulgaria: some good bits and some bad bits. But it would have been top eight and not top five.”
So how many marks would you give yourself out of 10?
“I’m not sure: I would say maybe five? Because some bits have been good and some other bits have been not so good but in the end it was all more or less what I was expecting. OK, maybe we have done a bit better than I was expecting, so I could give myself five and a half or six?”
Making pace notes has been a big challenge. How is that going?
“That’s probably one of the hardest things for me. Even when I was in Formula One I never really liked it when engineers were talking to me over the radio when I was driving the car in the circuit. Now though it is part of the job. There is probably more speed to come from me through improving the pace notes than there is in any other area.”
Rallying is a slightly mad sport. Does it ever scare you?
“No, there is nothing that I am scared of in a rally car: it is just a very different style of driving. In the end you have to trust your co-driver and your pace notes because this is part of the skill of rallying.
Having said that, when you go off on a circuit, you normally go off into a gravel trap or a tyre wall. When you go off in rallying there are trees. There is no room for mistakes, and although I am making a few all the time, this is one of the things that attracts me to rallying. If it was easy, then everybody would do it.”
Have your targets changed at all this year?
“No, not really. I just want to gradually improve and learn everything you need to succeed in rallying. It’s unrealistic to expect much more in your first year as rallying is all about experience.
The chances are that I’m not going to be able to win anything this year but if I could have one or two more results in the top five then that would be really good. But I think it’s going to be tough…”
Source: RedBull
Courtesy: Kriss
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