A tough Rally Mexico for Andreas
Rally Mexico twice ended ahead of schedule for Andreas Mikkelsen. On Friday, the Volkswagen driver hit a stone when exiting a corner on the “El Chocolate” special stage and damaged the rear-right suspension, bringing his day to a premature end having previously been running second.
March 10, 2014
Rally Mexico twice ended ahead of schedule for Andreas Mikkelsen. On Friday, the Volkswagen driver hit a stone when exiting a corner on the “El Chocolate” special stage and damaged the rear-right suspension, bringing his day to a premature end having previously been running second.
On Saturday, a mistake in the pace notes resulted in Mikkelsen/Markkula rolling their car when they cut too much off a corner and were flipped over by a hole in the road. Thanks to the outstanding job done by their mechanics, the number nine Polo R WRC was back as good as new by the time it took to the road for Sunday’s special stages. They managed to get the World Rally Car back into top condition within the three-hour time limit specified in the regulations. Andreas used the Sunday to gain as much experience as possible at rally pace, setting four top-three times in the process.
“A tough rally for us. Retiring twice is not exactly what we had in mind. I just made too many mistakes. Thanks to the great job done by my mechanics, I was still able to gain a few kilometres of experience at the Rally Mexico on Sunday, which will allow us to push hard again next year. All in all, we learned an awful lot here – unfortunately we did it the hard way. I will analyse it in detail over the coming days, and will prepare as well as possible for the coming rally in Portugal. We will come back stronger, and hopefully return to the podium there.”