Autosportfoto

Great Britain debrief: Part two

In the second part of our debrief from Dayinsure Wales Rally GB we highlight some sublime toolkit skills from the world champion and a particularly embarrassing moment for Toyota's Juho Hänninen.

Save of the rally
Sébastien Ogier's bid for a fifth world title came perilously close to disaster on Saturday night. His M-Sport Fiesta picked up a puncture in the fog-bound Aberhirnant 2 stage and the front-left brake disc was also damaged. He needed to act quickly with the final stage of the night imminent. But some quick thinking and sublime toolkit skills saved the day (picture bottom). Working frantically at the side of the road, Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassia managed to close the front brake system and complete the final test with only three working brakes. Amazingly, they only dropped 3.3sec and held on to their second place.

Surprise of the rally
Rally GB was Juho Hänninen's final event aboard Toyota's Yaris WRC and he was hoping to sign off in style. Sadly, he was sent spinning into retirement on arguably the easiest stage of the rally, the 1.80km Cholmondeley Castle test on Saturday afternoon. Struggling in 10th place, he carried too much speed into a left-hand corner and smashed into an unforgiving hay bale. The impact was significant and broke his car's suspension. His rally was over. It wasn't the end anyone wanted for the likeable Finn.

Quote of the rally
Unsurprisingly, the strongest soundbites came from the WRC crews as they emerged, eyes wide open, from the foggy Aberhirnant 2 test on Saturday night. Some were clearly shaken by the lack of visibility and generally tricky conditions they'd just encountered. Kris Meeke was particularly animated. "You can't see 10 metres off the start line," he barked. "It was hellishly crazy!" The Citroën driver fared better than most, only dropping 17.7sec against Jari-Matti Latvala's benchmark time.

One to forget
Rally GB wasn't the best rally for the Toyota Gazoo Racing squad. One of the biggest disappointments was Esapekka Lappi. As the man that took his maiden WRC win on Finland's ultra-quick gravel stages earlier this year, he was expected to impress on the fast stages in Wales. But it wasn't to be. He struggled with his Yaris WRC for almost the entire rally and could only bring it home ninth overall. "It was a really hard rally for us. We were struggling a lot. We need to do a lot of work with the car and also my driving. We need to learn a lot from this," he said at the finish.

Zdroj: wrc.com