Renis Nitiss came away from the World RX of Portugal in an upbeat mood after reaching the finals with team owner Mattias Ekström.
After a slow start in Q1 where he finished fourteenth fastest, the EKS RX driver finished a strong eighth in Q2.
“The team did a fantastic job and our strategy for qualifying races worked out perfectly. Today, the battles on track were so close that even the smallest nuances played a significant role in the results.
“Reaching the semi-final was the first objective, and, once that was reached, we did not lose our focus and got to the final. It had been a while since my last final, it felt so amazing to be back!” said Nitiss.
The Latvian was happy with the progress made over the weekend with a third and fifth place in Q3 and Q4 before taking third place in the semi-finals.
“We have taken the next step in our performance, and I have to thank the whole team for all their work, advice and trust in me! In the final, I lost some time being stuck behind the PSRX Volkswagen Sweden cars, and have to commend the manoeuvre by Sebastien Loeb on the main straight, pushing me into the regular lap instead of the Joker.”
Despite running in the top three for most of the race, Nitiss would drop down to fifth place when he took his joker lap, with only former champion Petter Solberg finishing behind
“Under slightly different circumstances, the result might have changed, but let us not get ahead of ourselves – everything will come in due time! I am very happy for Mattias Ekstrom who earned his second win of the season and demonstrated the full potential of EKS!”
