Sesks had been in the fight for victory practically throughout the whole rally, but everything ultimately fell apart on the penultimate special stage.
Sesks suffered no fewer than two punctures on the last but one stage and thus lost the chance to fight for the win. On top of that, during the road section M-Sport Ford finally gave up the ghost entirely, forcing the Latvian driver to retire even before the rally-ending Power Stage.
“At the moment of the first puncture we already understood that the fight was practically over. And then before the second puncture we started to hear some strange noise from the engine,” Sesks recalled.
Sesks and his co-driver Renars Francis did everything they could to keep going, but in the end it wasn’t enough.
“The car began to lose power and on the road section the situation was really peculiar. We changed everything that could be changed on the car, but we couldn’t find the fault. We were still able to limp on a bit, but you’re not going far like that,” Sesks said.
Although the final outcome was a huge disappointment, the Latvian still had reason to be pleased. He had now unquestionably proved that he has the speed required to fight for victory in WRC rallies in the top class.
“For me the biggest relief is that we had the pace. That’s what we can take away from this weekend. Now we’ll see what happens,” Sesks said, already looking slightly ahead.
Sesks had impressed already last season, but this year his performances had been at best only mediocre before the event in Saudi Arabia. However, the Latvian did not feel that he was in any way under pressure to succeed there.
“No, no. As I said, it didn’t feel as if we had done anything radically differently, but it seems that it simply worked this time,” he said.
