Teemu Suninen says he has used the pre-event test to get his M-Sport Ford Fiesta WRC to “handle well in the ruts” of the Rally Argentina stages.
Suninen makes only his second appearance in Argentina next weekend and the Finn wants to build on his fine fifth place finish on the Tour de Corse last time out.
Speaking ahead of the event, Suninen said: “I competed here for the first time last year and really enjoyed it. It’s not a particularly rough rally, but it is fast and requires a lot of strength. On a long straight you can feel the holes in the road as they bounce the car in the air!”
“You also need a lot of traction and the car needs to handle well in the ruts – which is one of the things we focused on at our test last week.”
Unlike in Corsica, Rally Argentina has a very similar route to twelve months ago, much to the delight of Suninen; he also admitted that this will be something that he enjoys and he commented: “Personally, I don’t feel the same pressure that I had before Corsica but I still need to finish this rally with a good result. The good thing is that we can rely on our old pace notes from last year as there aren’t many changes to the route.”
“I’m really looking forward to next week and it will be interesting to see where we are. The start of the season has shown that the team have clearly taken another step forward with the car. There are still some question marks, but based on the previous events I feel that we can be competitive in Argentina.”
Rally Argentina next weekend kicks off a South American double header for the FIA World Rally Championship, with the new event in Chile taking place a fortnight later between May 10-12.
