The Latvian suffered a puncture already on the first proper stage of the rally, and the event remained an uphill struggle from that point on.
After the early setback, Sesks struggled to find top speed again, and in the end, the promising driver finished only 15th overall in Portugal. He was outpaced by both of his M-Sport teammates – Josh McErlean and Grégoire Munster – as well as several WRC2 competitors.
While the Latvian is still adapting to the top class, the learning curve can’t last forever. According to Sesks, the puncture triggered a downward spiral that never really stopped.
“I’d say everything went wrong with that puncture. It somehow dropped us back already,” Sesks said after the rally.
“And then the next stage after the puncture – it was quite strange for us. Then we started to change the setups and so on, and from there it went quite strangely – feeling-wise and setup-wise,” he continued.
In other words, the puncture threw Sesks off his rhythm, and he wasn’t able to get back on track. Looking back, the Latvian would likely approach things differently.
“And now looking back, maybe we just had to change something a little bit to adapt. Of course, having the puncture in the third corner of the rally basically ruined the rally from the very beginning. And from that point, we were just having some more bad luck,” he reflected.
Despite the disappointment, Sesks felt there were still positives to take from the weekend – something to build on.
“I would say if you take out all the lost time, we were together with the teammates, in the same pack. So I think for the first WRC event here in Portugal, it’s quite okay. Of course, maybe we didn’t think it would be as tough,” he admitted.
Sesks, 25, rose to prominence in the rallying world at last summer’s Rally Poland. He shocked everyone by finishing fifth overall – in what was his first-ever Rally1 outing. That performance immediately raised expectations whenever Sesks has returned to the Rally1 cockpit.
“It’s a good learning also. If it were easy, everyone would do it,” Sesks stated bluntly.
