The end of Rally Portugal was filled of troubles for Patrik Sandell and Emil Axelsson. They mixed good stage-times with technical problems. On the second last stage they had to retire for the rest of the rally.
- The engine was stuck in some safe-mode. It didn't go over 4000rpm. We tried to fix it after the stage but we didn't find what was wrong, says Patrik Sandell.
Until that the rally was full of technical problems. One front wheel came loos on the Friday. Yesterday the wheel nuts on the other front wheel broke. They have done a really good driving between the troubles and have had the third best time on many of the stages. PG Andersson and Urmo Aava in each Suzuki Super 1600 have been fighting about the first and second places.
- We can see that the car isn't as good as the Super 1600-cars. But we knew that when we started this season in a brand new car, usually it takes one year to develop a new model. We are already one step at the way and hope we can take some more steps further in Rally Sardinia in May, says Patrik.
- We have to be satisfied anyway. The tempo in the class has been extremely high, sometimes faster than the 4wd group N-cars. And when we haven't had those technical problems we have had top positions. We can't demand more, says Emil Axelsson.
The junior class in Rally de Portugal was won by PG Andersson with Urmo Aava in second place and Jozef Berez on the third.
Next competition is Rally Sardinia 18-20th of May.