Great debut at Rally Argentina for Veiby

Ole Christian Veiby had a dramatic finish to his Rally Argentina debut. He rolled on the last stage, but could still complete the rally in a very good way and was the second quickest R5 car overall.

April 30, 2018

Ole Christian Veiby had a dramatic finish to his Rally Argentina debut. He rolled on the last stage, but could still complete the rally in a very good way and was the second quickest R5 car overall.

Ole Christian Veiby and his co-driver Stig Rune Skjærmoen participated for the first time at Rally Argentina as privateers. They didn’t compete for points in the WRC2 category, but were still up against the WRC2 drivers – and were pleased to see that only Pontus Tidemand was faster than them among the R5 crews.

“To finish as the second quickest R5 car is something that I’m very pleased with. As mentioned, this was my first time at Rally Argentina and the roads were extremely rough – so this is a great result” said Ole, who got to experience exactly how tough the conditions were when he rolled on the final stage – in addition to a puncture on Friday and two on Saturday.

“We had a little roll on the last stage and I feel like it just happened for no real reason. I came into a right hand hairpin. The lines were so deep that the car got a bit stuck and we got flipped over. Luckily there were spectators around and they quickly helped us get back on four wheels so we could finish the stage at full speed” he said with a smile.

Ole, who is a works driver for Skoda Motorsport, is impressed by his team-mates Pontus Tidemand and Kalle Rovanperä, who were competing for points for the team this time. The 17-year-old Finn was leading the rally when he pushed too hard on the penultimate stage, went off the road and had to retire. That left Tidemand with a dominant win.

“Pontus and Kalle have driven really fast this weekend. We couldn’t keep up with them, but I’m still very pleased with our performance” said Ole.