“I think pressure is part of this job, so if you can’t deal with it then that’s not our problem,” he said.

“It’s down to somebody else’s problem to solve it himself, we can’t do everything for them. We give the drivers the best car we can and the best team we can and the rest is down to them.”

Describing the incident, Suninen said: “Under braking I pulled the handbrake and stalled the engine, and then I didn’t have the engine to pull through the corner and just slide off.”

While it was undoubtedly a driver error, Suninen pointed to the fact he had no competitive experience of Pirelli’s gravel tires on the World Rally Car prior to SS1 and the fact his last gravel rally in the car was this same event last year as to reasons how this could have gone wrong.

https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/the-f...s-better-than/