Where do I even start with Friday in Greece? In the space of one loop I took the first WRC stage win of my career and then watched it all go up in smoke, almost literally. So let me take you through it.
Acropolis is the roughest, rockiest rally we do all year. It’s relentless, it eats cars and tyres, and you have to pick your moments. We knew going in that our road position was on our side, and Shane and I talked about it before the start – if it’s going our way, we use it. So that’s exactly what we set out to do.
Through the morning the Puma felt good and we kept chipping away, climbing into the top three. Then on SS5 we put it all together and set the fastest time, quicker than Seb Ogier by a few tenths. My first ever fastest stage time in the World Rally Championship. I won’t pretend that didn’t mean a lot. To do it here, on an event this tough, against the best driver the sport has ever seen, in my first full season in Rally1, is something I’ve worked a very long time for. We were third overall and right in the fight, less than 19 seconds off the lead.
And then it all came apart on the very next stage.
We picked up a front puncture and had to stop and change it, which dropped us off the podium. That happens, you deal with it. But when we got going again the car was down on power, and then we got a second puncture on top of it. We had no power for the last 5km or so and just couldn’t go anywhere. By the end of the stage we’d lost about four minutes and dropped outside the top ten.
It turned out to be the turbo. On the road section there was smoke coming off the car and some banging, so Shane and I pulled over to take a look. The lads in the team came to help for a bit, but with the turbo gone and oil leaking there was a real fire risk, and at that point there’s no decision to make. You don’t take chances with that. So that was our Friday done.
I’m not going to dress it up – going from a stage win to retirement one stage later stings. There was no big impact, nothing obvious, so it’s a frustrating one to take and we’ll get the car looked at to understand it properly. But I meant what I said at the time: you have to take the positives, and the positive is the pace. The speed was real. On a day when some of the biggest names in the championship were having all sorts of trouble out there, we were quick when it counted, and that’s the hardest part of this whole game to find.
So I’m gutted, but I’m proud of how Shane and I drove, and proud of the car the team gave us before the trouble hit. We’ll regroup, take the speed with us, and keep going. Thanks as always to everyone who follows along and gets behind us – it genuinely means a lot.
More from Greece soon.
Jon
