If there was one thing Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia didn’t want to see on Friday morning, it was fresh snow. But that is exactly what they got and the French pairing has had to battle the worst of the conditions throughout the day.
Acting as a snow plough for the cars behind, Ogier had little chance of making an impact on the timesheets
Adapting an intelligent strategy of damage limitation, the World Champion has done all he can in the circumstances and finished the day in 12th place. He delivered a clean drive to ensure he is ready to take advantage of any opportunities that might arise as the rally continues. And took all difficulties with a sense of humour!
“It’s been a difficult day, but one that we couldn’t do anything about. Opening the road, we knew that the conditions would be a challenge – especially on the second pass – but it was worse than any of us had expected”, Ogier said.
“We tried to push a couple of times, but in these conditions, it’s a fight just to stay on the road. And behind, everyone is taking the same line and it’s getting faster and faster with every car.”
“We know that the conditions will not be any easier tomorrow, but we’re so far behind that there’s nothing more to lose – we just have to go out there and see what happens.”
Sometimes you need to take the truth with humour! ?
Looks like some ?Fan did!!
Hope we did a good job with my friend @OttTanak @RallySweden @OfficialWRC pic.twitter.com/qjt2k5tzjt— Sébastien Ogier (@SebOgier) February 16, 2018
Elfyn Evans and Daniel Barritt were determined to make the most of this weekend’s Rally Sweden but suffered another unfortunate setback
They picked up a puncture through the first pass of Röjden (SS4) and lost more than a minute to the leading pack.
With the time proving increasingly difficult to claw back, the luckless Brits will now also have to endure an arduous task as the third car on the road tomorrow.
“It’s not been the best of days out there. I think it’s fair to say that we were struggling for some pace this morning, but we were pretty unfortunate to pick up the puncture. Quite a few of the top cars hit the same stone, so it was just our bad luck. But to be honest, we were still struggling after that. So we’ll make some changes tonight and see what we can do tomorrow”, Evans (11th) explained.
Teemu Suninen and Mikko Markkula had the best day of the M-Sport crews – they were 6th overall
“I’ve been quite happy with our performance today. There are still some things that we need to improve for tomorrow as we’re still not on the pace to fight with the leading cars. It’s been okay, and I need to get the experience, but I would still like to show an improvement and do a bit better tomorrow”, Suninen commented.
