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Åhlin “will be stronger” after ERC Circuit of Ireland experience

Fredrik Åhlin had a mixed FIA European Rally Championship debut on the Circuit of Ireland, but knows he'll be stronger for the experience.

Åhlin arrived on the event after a fine start to his year in Sweden in Wales, but expectations were low for his first asphalt rally since 2012. Despite that, he climbed to fourth overall on SS3, and was second quickest on SS5.

Though he fell to seventh when he hit a kerb on the Newtownards street stage - "I'd never done a handbrake turn on Tarmac before" - and broke his Ford Fiesta R5's suspension, he "finished day one in a good frame of mind" and was then third quickest on the first stage of leg two.

However, he then suffered a puncture on SS8, which he admitted affected his rhythm: "We'd had a lot of pace note mistakes during the event, but because I had been concentrating one hundred percent on my driving it hadn't been a problem, but on SS10 the feeling was gone and on a left-right-left into jump into left corner section we didn't have the jump in the notes. I didn't react in time, and when we landed we broke the steering arm and cracked the radiator, so we had to stop.

"It was a silly mistake and I am really disappointed in myself, because I should know better and it shouldn't have happened. Sometimes the car fails and you blame the car, but this time it was my fault and you can only blame the driver. It's a hard lesson to learn, and I will be stronger after this experience."

Åhlin's CA1 Sport team boss Martin Wilkinson was more upbeat, labelling his driver's performance earlier in the event as "incredible".

Zdroj: fiaerc.com