Gardemeister best privateer in WRC Italy Sardinia
Hallinta Hoop, 20.5.2007
Flying Finnish rally driver Toni Gardemeister finished into 6th position in WRC Italy Sardinia after hard and difficult rally. His best special stage positions were 5th and 6th. The problem was sand dust, which was sucked by warm dampers to cause failure to operate as expected. Therefore the rear of Gardemeisters' Mitsubishi Lancer WRC'05 suffered ungrip surface.
- It was not nice to rally because we could not find good rhythm at all. It was very hard to drive hard as the rear of my car was sliding all the time. At the start we didn't know if the problem was in the setups or the driver, told Gardemeister.
After first leg Gardemeister kept 7th position. The gap for leader was stretched into two minuts. Toni rallied his best special stage position in final stage of the day. He finished the stage into 5th position.
- We tried to make chances for the setup for whole first leg. For the final three stages of the day we managed to make better setup. But still it wasn't good, told Gardemeister.
At the second leg Gardemeister kept his position, but the grip was still gone.
- We had some serious moments in that leg also, Gardemeister remembered.
Toni with his co-driver Jakke Honkanen does not enter WRC Greece. He will do the recce for next season. However there are active negotiations going on for his next WRC event.
WRC Italy Sardinia was won by Ford driver and fellow countryman Marcus Grönholm. Second was another Flying Finn Mikko Hirvonen. Grönholm gained leadership of WRC due his victory. Second position is kept by Sebastien Loeb, who suffered an off in Sardinia. Hirvonen is 3rd and Gardemeister is 10th.