The second time, the better time
I¹ve got a real good feeling after finishing the Swedish rally in a way we did it. Obviously, it was our second time back there and it went much better compared to our debut WRC rally last year.
Now we are heading for the Rally of Portugal. It¹s the second time we start this rally and, again, it¹s quite interesting to see, how it works out this time.
Like in Sweden I remember the roads now. But knowing it... oh well, it does not help too much. It¹s really a true challenging place. You have to be very precise all the time and get the pace note right through and through. There are stones, rocks and stumps in front of you, besides you and behind you everywhere.
The brand new thing is to start the rally in Lissabon, but then it¹s back to Algarve. There is one new special stage to be learnt, as well.
This is our first gravel rally with this new car. I like the car a lot. It handles wittily and suits better to my driving style.
Portugal is one of the trickiest rallies on gravel. You have to turn and twist all the time. Obviously, the Rally of Jordan is even more difficult, while the roads down there are so slippery all the way along.
We had one day of testing last week in France. It was a good test session.I¹ve got a good feeling in the car. We managed to fix the set-up to the right direction and now we are eager to start the rally again after a some weeks¹ break.
Our competitors got a certain handicap, while we didn¹t go to Mexico. They have now more experience with the new cars. However, Portugal is a different place compared to Mexico. Now we are again in Europe and this is not a high altitude rally. We got all the power from the engine side in use and it feels great to get everything out of the performance of your car.
My target is the same it was in Sweden: We go as fast as we can and we try to avoid the big mistakes. Everything went well in our first rally of this season and if it goes as good in Portugal, well, we should have a good result again.
Well, all in all I still try to learn more and more. This weekend we have to be very sharp and get the best out of the pace notes. Let¹s wait and see, how it goes. This is very interesting period of time, at least.
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