Toyota’s Kalle Rovanperä and Hyundai’s Ott Tänak were forced to retire, opening the path for others to step in the rally’s forefront.
Leading the championship and opening the road, Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville is fifth after the morning’s first three stages, trailing the leader by 40.5 seconds. The conditions were incredibly challenging.
“I mean, you just need to look on the on the timing board to see how tough it was,” Neuville chuckled.
“Lots of snow all morning long and bad visibility as well. It wasn’t easy to see where the road was going and find the grip. Generally, I was struggling a lot. Nevertheless, the first and the last loop went quite decent. The middle one, I was very pissed because, we have a problem on fast rallies, and it was still not solved. I couldn’t see and I went two times into the snowbank and lost a couple of seconds, so I wasn’t happy at all,” Neuville continued.
More snow is expected for the afternoon loop. The challenge is not diminishing.
“If you think that the morning was difficult the afternoon will be even more, that’s for sure. I mean, we’re running behind historic cars, so there will be deep ruts underneath the snow. The car might be all over the place. We need to prepare mentally now. We have one hour left to to prepare ourselves for a very tough afternoon,” Neuville planned.
Neuville mentioned yesterday, Thursday, that he has a clear goal for the Rally Sweden. Where does it stand now??
“Better than I thought after the last stage. We are getting closer to the target, but we still have to work a bit to get on course,” Neuville said.
What that goal is, the Belgian still refuses to reveal.
“I’m gonna tell you at the end of the weekend,” Neuville chuckled.
