... even though he has never been on this island, hasn't driven this car before and has nearly zero experience in R5/Rally2 cars. What a driver!
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Looks to me like yet another nail in the coffin of Mikkelsen's Rally1 chances, particularly after reading the dirtfish interview in which he spouts a long list of excuses as to why he lost.
It's not just the fact that he lost- after all, Loeb is a formidable opponent- but the way he basically tried to claim it wasn't his fault and he drove a good drive is unimpressive.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it though
The interview I read says that Michelin were supposedly better on the first day in wet and worse on second day in dry. So he also claims that he was able to close up on second day due to his tires beeing better then. First day he had a puncture on first stage and no extra spare, that's just what happened.
A bit over a year ago Loeb got in the Puma, never changed a single setting and won Monte vs fulltime drivers that were developing their cars for a year, in a rather similar situation. Since then he led every rally he started on the top level and was always the fastest Puma (beating Breen, who just got 2nd place in a Hyundai).
Losing to Loeb by a small margin surely isn't "a nail in the coffin" for anyone.
Loeb and Ogier results in Rally1 era make everyone currently driving there look like second class drivers though.
Interesting article about Loeb from a Skoda engineer Yannick Willocx, Loeb engineer in the Azores: "I felt useless..."
https://www.autohebdo.fr/actualites/...i-inutile.html
Gus Greensmith on the Skoda Fabia RS:
https://www.skoda-motorsport.com/en/...easy-to-drive/
Rally Warrior aka Chris Ingram:
Counting down the days until my next WRC round in the brand new RS Rally2...
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?sto...00065400402839