M-Sport Ford’s Teemu Suninen believes the pace notes used on Rally Germany are the most important on the calendar behind those on Rallye Monte-Carlo.
Although all the stages this weekend are on mostly tarmac, the style of roads and the fact that gravel could be moved onto the stage with drivers cutting edges of corners means that co-drivers such as Jarmo Lehtinen must make sure they must use as much detail as possible to remove any possible errors.
Suninen goes into the German event on the back of a tough event in his native Finland after damaging a splitter on the Ford Fiesta WRC early on and he wasn’t able to fulfil his potential for the remainder of the event.
He said ahead of this weekend’s rally: “Rallye Deutschland is a really demanding rally, but I feel ready for the challenge. We had a good run last time out on Tarmac, and I hope we can build on that next week.”
“The route note crews will also be really important next week – and I think this is the most important event for them after Rallye Monte-Carlo. There is always a lot of cutting here which brings a lot of dirt onto the road. The conditions can change so much from one corner to the next, and that means a lot of changes in the notes.”
He continued: “We’ve had a day and a half testing to find the best set-ups on the car, and the feeling is really good. Of course it’s impossible to be on the limit all the time at an event like this, but if we stay focused I think we can have a good rally.”
The last tarmac event on the calendar, the Tour de Corse, was somewhat of a turning point for Suninen’s season where he finished fifth. He then went on to achieve five more top 5 finishes in the next six events including a second-place result on Rally Italia Sardegna.
Rally Germany begins tomorrow evening and continues throughout this weekend.
