After a six-month break the FIA World Rally Championship finally returned with Rally Estonia, a new location that was added to the calendar earlier this summer.
But someone who wasn’t happy with his performance in round four of the season was Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville. The Belgian crashed out on Saturday on SS7 where he lost his right-rear wheel after hitting something that was hiding in long grass before having more problems as he returned the following day.
“On a very fast left-hander, we got kicked off the line, I tried to recover it and unfortunately there was something on the outside which damaged the wheel. We managed to get to the end of the stage but we knew this would be the end.” Neuville said in a interview after the stage on the Saturday afternoon.
Despite re-joining on Sunday in a bid to win vital Power Stage championship points, he struggled with mechanical issues with his Hyundai i20 Coupe, which forced him and co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul to retire from the event.
“It has definitely not been our weekend, and we didn’t really deserve it to be honest. Our target today (Sunday) was to salvage some points from the Power Stage, but we had an issue ahead of the start, which meant we couldn’t drive at speed. The issue on Saturday was also unfortunate as we were kicked out of the line and hit something on the outside. We saw the videos from other crews at the same place, and it was similar for everyone, it was just we lost a wheel. Disappointing but the next one will be better.” Neuville added.
Round five of the revised WRC calendar will take place at Rally Turkey between 18-20 September.
