Impressive Rally Sweden for Veiby

Through all the 19 stages Ole Christian Veiby was fighting in the top lead. Surprisingly a new name in the field, Takamoto Katsuta from Japan, managed to take the win, just ahead of reigning champion Pontus Tidemand and Ole Christian. The Japanese finished only 4,5 seconds ahead of Tidemand, and 26 seconds ahead for Veiby. Veiby secured his second third in a row for Rally Sweden.

– I’m very happy with this. We have done it well all weekend. It was very difficult and tricky conditions both Friday and Saturday, but I feel we controlled it well. Skoda wanted us to drive safe, complete all stages, and get the experience – and we did that. Still we managed to be close on both Pontus and Katsuta. We tried to push a bit on the final day, but with only two stages to go the gap was too big, so we backed off again. Skoda seems to be happy with our performance, and that’s a good thing.

Compared to last year’s podium, there is no doubt that this third is an even stronger performance. Ole were closer to the WRC-drivers, and the gap to team-mate Pontus Tidemand is also smaller.

– We showed last year that we were able to be on same speed as Pontus, and this year we were even faster on a few stages.