Hyundai Motorsport’s WRC2 Team finished Rally Sweden with good results when home driver Ole Christian Veiby brought his Hyundai i20 R5 over finish-line in second place.
Veiby and his teammate Nikolay Gryzain both showed better results after Monte-Carlo and showed encouraging pace in their i20 R5 cars in difficult conditions over the nine stages that have been run during Rally Sweden.
“Overall, it has been good to see Veiby finishing the rally after a tricky start to the season. He pushed very hard to get the best out of everything and to bring home some championship points.
“He showed good pace and I am sure he will now build on this competitiveness for the future. We hope that Nikolay will improve soon and get used to our Hyundai i20 R5.” Andrea Adamo, Team Principal, said.
With six of the completed stages in Norway, Veiby put hard pressure on his compatriot Mads Østberg as he took a stage victory in SS2. Although their lead was short-lived, they stayed in line with the experienced Østberg to finish Friday in second in the class.
“It’s been a tricky weekend, and in conditions we are certainly not used to here. We have had some good stages, and we need to be happy with that, but there are also areas where we need to understand where we’ve lost time.” Veiby said.
“The event got off to a good start with a win on my home stage, and we were the best R5 overall. I was really happy with that! Saturday also started well with a stage win, even with a puncture towards the end.“
“We then struggled again on the following two stages, which was frustrating. We weren’t able to catch up to Mads, but we pushed as hard as we could and took good points for the championship.
Veiby claimed a second stage win on Saturday morning, despite picking up a puncture towards the end of the test, putting in the fastest time back through Hof-Finnskog, near a forest which is owned by his family.
Gryazin lost two and a half minutes on SS7 due to a puncture and dropped to sixth place. He maintained his position with a trouble-free run in the wet Wolf Power Stage, finishing last in the class.
“The rally was tough. At the beginning we had some good pace on the stages, but we did two mistakes which hampered our end result. We had a spin on the second stage on Friday, and then had a puncture on Saturday, which lost us a lot of time.” Gryazin said.
“It was not easy to avoid because it was a fast corner over a crest and there was an unexpected stone on the inside. Today, was just a safe drive. There was no point taking risks in tricky conditions when we had nothing to gain.“
“For sure, we have areas we need to improve, but this was a good experience. Thanks to Hyundai Motorsport, RedGrey Team and the engineers for their support.”
